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' HOME COMFORTS; 



ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED, 



/niiiiliar mnn nf (0iitrtj-®at| life. 

BY LILLIE SAVERY. 



Trifles with truth at onc« combined, 

Ti'' plefise and teach <5ach thoughtful mind. 




NEW YORK : 

BU:N"0E & BKOTHER, PUBLISHERS, 

126 NASSAU STREET. 



x-f 



or 



Entered ftoc«ordi:ig to Act of Congress, in tbe year IbS.', by 

BUNCE A BROTHER, 

III tho CIevk'8 Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York 



'dn 



EVERY FRUGAL HODSEKEEPKR IN AMERICA ; 

TO EVERY ONE WHO LOVES SKATNESS, OllUER, E€0>;OMY, 
GOOD FOOD WELL COOKED, A^D ALL TRK HOUSEnOLD 

C O M F O R T S OF HOME, 

THIS BOOK, FOR EVERY HOME, la RESPECTFULLY 
DEDICATED, BY THEIR FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



No man, woman or child, can read tliis book with- 
out being interested in its pleasant narrative and 
exposition of human character, and instructed in its 
lessons of economy, in things that pertain to every day 
life, in every family. It is written by one of much 
experience, with the sole design to do good. It is a 
good book, written for a good purpose, and peculiarly 
well adapted to the use of all new-beginners in house- 
keeping. It may be read with profit by all classes, 
and we are confident that no one can read it without 
being interested, amused, and instructed. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Economy Illustrated in a pair of shoes — Mrs. Doolittle is disgusted 
with rtie meanness of Mrs. Savery — She contrasts Mrs. Savery's 
kitchen with her own — How to make a corn cake — Pictures of 
health — Children and check aprons — Mrs. Doolittle upon corn- 
meal cake — Mrs. Doolittle disgusted with the economy of a supper 
that costs nothing — Trees that bear fruit, and trees that don't 
bear fruit — How to work a garden — Economy of space — The 
V/aterraelon, and where it grew — Delicate children — Going to 
marry a mechanic, 9-22 

CHAPTER II. 

Salinda Love>7ell — A nine days' wonder — Studying economy — Eco- 
nomy of the bed-room arrangements — The oaken box — The lame 
boy, and the economy of kindness — The trunks and their contents 
— The economy of ventilation — Warming the house — A new radia- 
tor—The book shelves — Hanging up the dresses — Making much of 
little room — Economy in furniture — New use of a trunk — The 
Magic Ciiair — Mattress making — Economizing time — Making rag 
carpets — The Doolittle family— Fancy work — Works of fiction — 
The way that children should greet their mother — Lillie and Frank 
—Brothers and sisters— Evening readings — Good books— Punctu- 
ality— There come.«i fatiicr — A warm greeting — Teachings of afiec- 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

tion —The tea-table — Good breeding — Cora cakes— Mus?i — White 
and yellow meal — Economy of silver ware — Housekeeping— Pro- 
per food — True art of cooking — Tea-table lectures — How to boil a 
piece of meat — The secret of good food, .... 24-S2 

CHAPTER III. 

Tlie breakfast — Harmony — Economy in food — Dough-uuts — Econo- 
my of time — The musquito net — Carpets and calicoes — Grateful 
reminiscences — Rats and their counterparts — The magnetic power 
of a smile— Scripture answers— How to make bread — Saving stale 
bread — Bees in the city — The plain dinner — Greens — Account 
with the garden — Work for a day — What a remarkable boy — How 
he was home taught — There is a cause for everything— Studying 
ship-building— All for the best — Mind culture — Keeping oui moths 
— Saving trifles — The poultry house — Deodorizing — The grape- 
vine — The garden — Economy of space— The cistern — Washing 
dishes — Something worth economy — Cheap soap — Making tea, 83-120 



CHAPTER IV. 

The tea — Vegetable diet — Efifect of pork eating — Opinion of tobacco 
— Excerpta upon domestic economy — Cause of puny children — 
Salt, is it necessary? — Folly in eating — Digestion — Argument for 
drinking — Uselessness of condiments in food — Clothing— Such is 
fashion — Suitable clothing — Folly in eating and sleeping — Early 
rising — Walking exercise — Be courteous — Value of good temper — 
Rules of household economy — Punctuality — Household teachings 
— Botany — Poor economy— Economy is not parsimony — Learn to 
say I can't afford it — Care of the sick — Cure of Erysipelas— Family 
amusements, 122-150 

CHAPTER V. 

Saturday iu the kitchen — ^The rice pudding — Soup — Preparation for 
Sunday — Iced tea — A day of recreation — How to treat servants — 



CO %- IE NTS. XI 

PAGB 

Horsemanship for girls — Magnetic power of 'the voice — The Doo- 
littles* turn-out — My smelling bottle, or I shall faint — Vulgar things 
— Forgetfulness-r-The visit to the country — A sensible man's will 
— Mrs. Whitlock — The welcome — The farm-house— Trees by the 
roadside — The four buildings — The barn — The wind-mill — The 
strawberry bed — Uncle Samuel and the children-— The farm-house 
tea-table — Country bread — Natural homage — Meeting the Doolit- 
tles— Thinking one thing and saying another — The contrast — The 
Doolittle farm — Strawberries and cream at home — Something bet- 
ter—My dear little wife— Haj;)py hearts, .... 153-196 



CHAPTER VI. 

Visit to the Doolittles — Out of tune — A garden in shocking order — 
The boys — Influence upon character — Rough and tumble fight of 
the boys, and the result — Oil upon the waters — A scene behind the 
scenes— Another crash — The Doolittle tea-table — The stolen milk 
—A lesson learned for life, 193-212 



CHAPTER VII. 

Doolittle coming home — The effect of home influences — The effect of 
drinking— Walls have ears — The listener — Plotting villains — Doo- 
little fsits his picture taken — Insubordination — A family scene — 
Leaving home — The pledge — Doolittle in the lawyer's office — A con- 
tretemps — The budget of news — The experiment of city life 
ended, 213-235 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A change of character— Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle— A match broken 
up — The return home — Forgiveness — Mr. Doolittle and daughters 
—An affecting scene— Talk of moving — A death i:cene, . 236-244 



Xll C0NTE>7TS. 

•chapter IX. 

PAGB 

Stx months on time's railroad — Talk of marriage — A lesson of eco- 
nomy — As man and wife should live — The old house— The pleasant 
surprise — The old bed-room — Goodness and happiness— House 
furnishing— The kitchen, parlor, and bed-rooms — A pleasant 
meeting — Captain Peabody and Salinda — The approaching wed- 
ding day — The Doolittle girls — A great change — The way to spend 
winter evenings — Business punctuality — The mysterious package 
— Gratitude — Another suspense — The wedding and the end, 247-276 



ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 



CHAPTER I. 



Economy Illustrated in a Pair of Shoes — Mrs. Doolittle is 
Disgusted. 

" Oh, dear me, Mrs. Lovewell, I am heartily 
tired of visiting t]]at Mrs. Savery. What do 
you suppose I found her doing yesterday after- 
noon, when you know it was so pleasant that 
everybody was in the street ? Oh, you need 
not guess ; I am sure you never w^ould think 
of the right thing." 

" Indeed, I don't know that I could, but I 
have no doubt it was something useful. Prac- 
ticing some of her arts of economy, I sup- 
pose." 

" Economy indeed ! Why, it is downright 
1* 



10 KC():S01LY ILLUSTKATED. 

meanness. I should be mortified to death, 
if I was caught at such a piece of busi- 
ness." 

" Why, Mrs. Doolittle, you alarm me. 
Pray, what was she about ?" 

'' About, indeed I Why, she was making a 
pair of shoes." 

" Slippers, you mean, I suppose ; I often do 
that for my husband." 

" Oh, yes, worsted work ; that is a very dif- 
ferent thing. No, it was a pair of shoes for 
herself. She had taken a pair of old shoe- 
soles, from which the tops had been worn out, 
and had cut new uppers from an old pair of 
her husband's black lasting pantaloons. Did 
you ever hear the like! I was really dis- 
gusted to hear her talk about it." 

" Why, what did she say." 

" Why, she said, ' there now, Mrs. Doo- 
little, I sat down after dinner, and commenced 
the job, with Susan to help me rip off the old 
soles and bind one of the new shoes, and now 
you see I have got just as good a pair of shoes, 
and for aught I see, just as good looking as the 
old pair that I paid a dollar and a half for. 



A NEAT KITCHEN. H 

And that is what I call economy. Is'ow I will 
go and show Susan how to make a new corn 
cake for tea. Don't yon want to learn V 

" I told her no indeed ; when I got so poor, 
and I put a real meaning emphasis upon the 
word — when I got so poor that I could not 
keep a cook that knew how to do her own 
w^ork, I would come and learn the trade." 

^^ Was she offended? Indeed Mrs. Doolittle, 
you were rather rude. You might have 
learned how to make a very nice cake." 

" Well I must acknowledge that I did ; no, 
she was not the least offended, but insisted 
that I should go down with her to the kitchen 
and see how it was done. I had a good mind 
to refuse, for I expected that I should get a 
grease spot on my new silk, just as like as not. 
I am sure I should in my kitchen ; but would 
you believe it, hers is as clean as a new pin. 
"Why the very floor looks as white and clean 
as a table. I do think she must keep that 
Susan of hers scrubbing all the time. Tor my 
part I don't see how she ever gets through all 
the work and do the washing too. I wish I 
could get such help." 



12 ECONOMY ILLUbTUATKD. 

" Mrs. Saverj says it is by economy. Econo- 
my of time, as well as everytliing else. But 
about the nice corn cake?'' 

"Oh yes. Well I never; why it was just 
nothing to make. I could have made it jnst 
as w^ell as she did." 

" If you had know^n how." 

"Why yes, to be sure ; but it is nothing to 
learn; and then to hear her count the cost. 
Why she would feed a whole family for six- 
pence. In the first place she took a cup of 
Indian corn meal, not over three cents worth, 
she said, and white at that — I always use 
yellow meal — it has more taste than the white 
— and put it in a clean wooden bowl, and what 
do you think she mixed with it, to make her 
cake? Water; nothing but water. Yes a 
little pinch of salt; but that she said she could 
not count the cost of, it was so small; and then 
she mixed, and stirred, and beat the meal and 
water together as though she was beating eggs, 
until she got it into a smooth batter, that 
would just pour into a shallow tin pan, about 
an inch deep. The cake when done was about 
as thick as my thumb. She. fii-st put the pan 



>:lat childkex. 13 

into a very hot oven and let it cook until the 
batter got stiff, and then she opened the stove 
doors and set the cake up edgeways right 
before the glowing coals until it got a nice 
delicate brown crust, and then drew it back 
and let it bake slow a long time — half an hour 
or more I should think." 

'' And was it good ?" 

"Good! why I declare I never tasted any- 
thing so delicious in all my life. I wouldn't 
have believed it, that just meal and water 
could be made so good. But that is not all. 
Just as she had got her cake turned up before 
the fire, in came lier two children — such pic- 
tures of health — did you ever see the like !" 

" She says that is ' the economy of health.' 
It is cheaper to keep them healthy than sick, 
as well as more comfortable. You found them 
very neat, too." 

"Neat! I never saw the like. But it's no 
wonder; look at the pains she takes with them. 
Why, it must keep Susan busy all the time." 

"Then who does the work?" 

"Well, I don't know^ I can't understand 
it. I wish I could get along so. But then 



14 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

my children are always sick. Hers are always 
well and tliat makes the difference." 

" No, the difference is in always keeping 
them well. But you w^ere going to tell us 
something more about the cake." 

" Oh, yes. When the children came in, 
Lillie said," 

'' Oh mother, will you let me bake a sweet 
cake for brother Frank and me?" 

" Yes, if you will run up to your room and 
put away your things, and get on your aprons." 

" Directly down they came, and as I live, 
both of them with check aprons on. I should 
not like to see my children dressed in check 
aprons. It looks so common, and sort of 
countryfied. Then Lillie took the bowl of 
batter, and got a part of a teacupful of mo- 
lasses, and a spoonful of ginger, and stirred it 
in, and then she got a cup of sour milk ; and 
what do you think that was for?" 

" I suppose to put in the cake." 

" Yes, but first she mixed with it a little 
super carbonate of soda^ until she set it all 
foaming, and then stirred it into the batter, 
with a little more meal to thicken it again, 



THE COKN CAKE. 15 

and poured it into an iron pan about twice as 
deep as the other, and clapped it right into 
the hot oven, where it baked until we had 
almost done tea, and then Susan brought it in 
smoking hot, and Mrs. Savery cut it up into 
squares, opening- each piece and laying on a 
little lump of sweet butter, and so serving it 
round to each one ; and would you believe it, 
in a respectable family, that that was the only 
cake on the table. I declare I had no great 
opinion of corn meal sweet cake, it seemed to 
look so mean ; and then I had already eaten 
hearty of the plain cake, and did not think I 
would touch this one, but Lillie, with her 
insinuating little coaxing way — I don't know 
who could resist her — said I must taste her 
cake, and with that she asked me to take my 
knife and lay it open, and then she took a 
spoonful of juice out of the quince preserves, 
and spread over it, and I began tasting and 
tasting, and would you believe it, the first 1 
thought about what I was doing, I had cleared 
my plate, and Lillie was helping me to 
another piece; she was so delighted to see 
mo eat it with such a relish, when I only 



16 ECOA^OMT ILLUSTRATED. 

intended to ' give it a taste, just out of com- 
pliment.' " 

" Then it was good ?" 

" Good ! I never tasted anything more 
delicious. I have often had a cake upon my 
table that I paid a dollar for that did not give 
lialf as much satisfaction ; the bakers are 
getting to cheat so dreadfully. I could have 
forgiven her about her meanness — don't you 
think it is meanness ? — in making shoes, or 
putting check aprons on her children, if she 
had not preached me one of her sermons 
upon economy, and actually proved to me 
that the supper, delicious as it was, had 
literally cost nothing — that is next to nothing. 
There was the meal three cents — the molasses 
and salt and soda, three cents — the tea, two 
cents — the sugar and milk, two cents — the 
butter — butter is high now, but that was not 
over four cents — and let me see, was that all?" 

" You mentioned some quince preserves." 

" Oh, yes, but she said they actually cost 
less than nothing. About eleven years ago — 
it was to commemorate the first birthday of 
Frank — she planted a quince bush, and then 



FLATTING A TKEE. 17 

she told how she made it grow, and bear fruit. 
She said she always kept the ground loose 
and covered in the summer with straw, which 
she wets with soap suds and dishwater, and 
last year her quince tree bore more than she 
w\anted ; and so a friend of hers came and 
brought her own sugar, and did all the work, 
and put up the quinces at the halves, while 
Mrs. Savery was away on a visit in the 
country. So she proved, you see, that they 
really did cost nothing. I wish I could 
live so." 

" I don't see why you could not, you have 
got a nice place for a garden." 

" Yes, full of bushes and flowers, but I have 
got no quince tree." 

" But you must do as Mrs. Savery did ; 
plant one." 

" Yes, and I might not live till it bore fruit. 
And besides, I never could do as she does. 
We hire all our work, and I often tell Mr. 
Doolittle it costs more to raise a few roses and 
flowers than it would to buy them. But then 
our girls must have a garden." 



18 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Don't you know how Mrs. Saveiy works 
hers?" 

" Oh, yes : her husband is a mechanic, and 
knows how to work, and don't mind it, and he 
spades up the ground before breakfast, and 
then Mrs. Savery and the children, and Susan 
all work at it, and that is the way they make 
their things cost nothing. We live different, 
you know." 

" Perhaps they make it a pleasure, instead 
of toil. I recollect going in there one day 
last summer — the door was open, and it was 
just at sundown, so I walked in and through 
the house — the tea-table was standing, just as 
they left it, and all hands were out in the gar- 
den as busy as bees. I recollect Lillie was 
saving safron, which Mrs. Savery said would 
sell for enough to pay for all the medicine they 
used in a year. 

Frank was cutting his third crop of grass 
from the borders, which he sold to old Capt. 
Peabody, for I don't know how many quarts 
of milk. Tlie old lady, you know, makes a 
living from her two cows. I declare there 



THE GARDEN. 19 

was not a spot in that garden tliat hadn't some- 
thing useful growing in it. But that was not 
all; I do believe that garden is the great secret 
of health of those children. 

As soon as Lillie saw me, she ran up and 
shook hands, and said, " she was so glad I had 
come, for father was just wishing that some of 
our friends would come in, and then he would 
cut the big melon." 

" Melons ! why, do they raise melons upon 
that little patch of ground?" 

" "Why no, I cannot say they do exactly, for 
the seed was planted in a barrel of earth set 
on the flagging, and the vines were trained up 
on top of a little flat roof building in the yard, 
and there they grew six or eight feet from the 
ground, some sweet delicious water-melons. 
That was what Mr. Savery said was the econo- 
my of space. It was ' economy of space ' in- 
deed ; for underneath the barrel of earth, was 
one full of ashes, saved from their chamber 
stove, where they burn wood, and that barrel 
used to run off a little lye to soften the hard 
water of their well." 

" Oh, I always buy potash." 



20 ECOIS'OMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" And slie always saves it. A gallon of lye 
will soften a large kettle full of hard-water, 
and as you see, said Mr. Savery, takes up no 
room, and the leached ashes make excellent 
manu]'e. That is what makes Frank's grass 
grow so rank, and our fruit trees look so 
thrifty." 

" Well, did you eat the melon?" 

" Oh yes, as soon a.s Lillie mentioned it, her 
father got up and brought it down, and Susan 
drew a pail of cold water and put it in ; and 
Frank said then he would run over and ask 
Aunt Mary and tlie girls, to come and join the 
water-melon party ; and upon my word, I do 
think it was the sweetest melon, and sv/eetest 
family circle I ever got into in all my life." 

" And was it big enough for all of you ?" 

" Oh yes. I have often paid three or four 
shillings for one nothing like as good. And 
while we w^ere eating — or ratlier while we 
were talking, after satisfying all of our appe- 
tites, Susan and all, Mr. Savery told Lillie to 
get her little account book, and show me, not 
only how she was learning to keep accounts, 
but how much they were indebted to the gar- 



CHECK APRONS AND THICK SHOES. 21 

den. Really I never could liave believea it. 
But the best of all, said he, it teaches my chil- 
dren habits of industry and economy." 

" Oh yes, that word economy always comes 
in." 

" Well, I am sure it is a very good word, 
and at this time particularly necessary for all 
to learn, and practice too. It would save much 
suffering among the poor." 

"Tes, it may be necessary for mechanics, 
and such sort of folks, to be always saving, 
but thank fortune, my family are able to live 
without working like common laborers in the 
garden every day. Besides, my children ain't 
able to do it ; they are very delicate." 

" Perhaps, Mrs. Doolittle, it is the garden, 
and check aprons, and thick shoes, and corn 
bread, and all that, that makes Mr. Savery's 
children so healthy. And certainly, when 
they are dressed for church, there are none 
that look prettier, or attract more attention by 
their pretty behavior ; if they do work in the 
garden and get ruddy faces, and dirty fingers." 

"Well, well, if you ain't getting to be a 
convert to the Saverys' economy. I shall 



22 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

expect to see you soon, making your own 
shoes." 

'' I don't know as to that, but I will tell you 
what you may see me doing — and I intend to 
begin to-morrow — and that is taking lessons in 
the art of house-keeping. You know my 
daughter, Salinda, is soon to be married, and I 
think we had better give Mrs. Savery five 
hundred dollars of her portion, for some lessons 
in the economy of house-keeping, the practice 
of which in time will pay it back, twice over." 

" And so you are going to get her to give 
your daughter the finish of her education, after 
all you have done for her. Well, well, I am 
beat now." 

"I shall certainly make her the ofier. I 
have been thinking about it for some time; 
and now what you have told me has fully con- 
vinced me that a quarter's tuition from Mrs. 
Savery, will be worth more than any quarter 
she ever had at boarding-school, or from her 
music master or French teacher; for to be 
candid with you, Salinda is going to marry a 
mechanic." 

"A mechanic! Oh my! the richest mer- 



MARRY A MECIIAXIC. 23 

chant's daughter in town, going to marry a 
mechanic. Well now I must go, and tell the 
news. What will my girls think ! good bye." 
" Good bye. Yes, yes, Mi-s. Doolittle, tell 
your girls, and all the rest of your acquaint- 
ance, that Salinda Lovewell, is going to take 
lessons of economy of Mrs. Savery, and then 
marry a poor mechanic. Well, we shall see, 
whether that won't be good economy. 



2-i ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED, 



CHAPTEE IT. 

The Merchant's Daughter — Preparation for Marriage. 

Salestda was a sensible girl, and was de- 
lighted with the project, hinted at in the close 
of the last chapter. She had been all her life 
in a boarding-school, and knew no more of 
keeping house, than though she had never 
lived inside of one. But as she had made up 
her mind to marry, and as her mother said, a 
mechanic, and as Mrs. Doolittle said, nothing 
but a mechanic, she began to think that she 
knew nothing about the very thing she should 
know^ about, and asked her mother what she 
was to do. 

Her mother knew the theory, but as she had 
been a long time living in a hotel, she could 
not teach her the practice. She knew Mrs. 
Savery could, and she intended to make it an 
object for her to do it. 

That very ev-ening, Charley Goodman was 
to call and have a talk with Salinda and her 



HOW TO BEGIN LIFE. 25 

father and mother, to fix upon the wedding 
day. Of course he wanted it soon — the sooner 
the better. 

" Charlie, said Mr. Lovewell, I have given 
my consent freely to this match, but I am 
afraid that neither you nor Salinda, know any- 
thing about the economy of house-keeping, 
and if you marry a girl ignorant of that, one 
who has been a reputed rich merchant's 
daughter, I am afraid that with your salary 
of a thousand dollars a year, you will run 
under. What think you my boy ?" 

" Why sir, that you began with that, in ex- 
actly the same position that I am, and you got 
along pretty well." 

" True, but I married the mother of the girl 
you are after : and in less extravagant times 
than these, and for two years she did her own 
work, with the assistance of a little girl she 
took, almost from the street." 

" And so vrill I do my work, father, if you 
will give me a chance to learn how. Let me 
go and live one year with Mrs. Savery — I am 
sure Charley will wait — or even half that time. 
[ shall know how, and I hope shall be able 
2 



26 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

to take care of my own liouse, and live com- 
fortably, without being dependent upon my 
father, or using up all the income of my hus- 
band." 

" Spoken like a sensible girl, and worthy of 
the honest man you have chosen for a husband. 
I am sure he will be willing to wait for this 
finishing touch of your education. When 
will you go ?" 

"If you are all willing, and Mrs. Savery 
will take me as her pupil, I will go to-morrow 
morning." 

"Agreed. Do you all say agreed. Yery 
well. I will answer for Mrs. Savery. And 
Susan, what a proud day for Susan, for it was 
her that your mother took, a poor friendless 
orphan, and learned how to work, and become 
the useful woman she is. Come wife, let us 
go and see Mrs. Savery, while the young 
couple have a chat together upon future pros- 
pects." 

It was a nine days wonder with Salinda's 
acquaintance, and boarding-school compan- 
ions, when they heard that such a rich man's 
daughter, had not only agreed to marry a plain 



LEAKNING HOUSEKEEPING. 27 

mechanic, but had gone to serve a year's ap- 
prenticeship to learn house-keeping, and some 
of the most foolish ones, including the Doo- 
littles, resolved to " cut her acquaintance," 
as they had no idea of associating with a 
''kitchen girl," or a "mechanic's wife." This 
did not disturb Salinda, as she was anxious to 
commence life just as her mother had done, 
and see if she could not help her husband as 
her mother did hers, to build up a fortune, by 
industry and frugality. 

Mrs. Savery received her with open arms, 
and promised her, "that before a year was 
over, she would be just as able to take charge 
of her house, as her teacher; and not only 
learn the art of living w^ell, but saving all, and 
actually growing rich upon what in most 
houses is wasted." 

" In the first place, we will go up and see 
where you are to sleep. You know our house 
is small, and we have to economize room, but 
I am very much opposed to small bed-rooms, 
because they cannot be well ventilated, and 
that is of the utmost importance on account 
of liealtlu I think vour mother told me that 



28 . ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

you had always been accustomed to sleep on 
a feather bed. It will, I fear, seem hard at 
first, to sleep on our mattresses ; but I never 
allow feathers in the house, except some thin 
pillows of old well-seasoned feathers." 

" Oh, I can soon accustom myself to a hard 
bed. But shall I not sleep wdtli Lillie ? it 
w^ould save room. I am anxious to make as 
little trouble as possible." 

" Not much ; and then it is more healthy, 
in warm weather, to sleep separate. This is 
your bed, and that is Lillie's. Both in one 
room, yet this thick curtain w^ll give each the 
privacy of separate apartments." 

" You have taken too much trouble, I fear, 
on my account." 

" 'No trouble is too much when health, com- 
fort, neatness and respectability are concerned. 
This curtain, being open top and bottom, will 
allow a free circulation of air, which will be 
much better than a close partition, and as we 
have no bath-room in the house, this arrange- 
ment will allow you both to enjoy the healthy 
luxury of a sponge bath of cold water in the 
bathing tub, every morning. I shall expect, 



IN A SMALL ROOM. 29 

too, that each will keep her own apartment 
in order ; and there, see how easy it is to draw 
aside the curtain, and now for the use of both 
together, you have a large pleasant room." 

'' Oh, I am sure I never saw anything nicer. 
What a pretty toilette table ; but I do not see 
any wash-stand." 

" You shall see that. The room is small, 
you know, and as I expect you and Lillie to 
use it as a sitting room, for your work and 
reading, when you wish to retire from the 
family circle, or from visitors, I prefer to have 
the conveniences for washing out of sight. 
Look here." 

Mrs. Savery stepped to the toilette table under 
the glass, and drew aside the snow white cur- 
tain, and there was a neat little painted wash- 
stand, with its white bowl and pitcher and 
soap dish, and drawer, and all the little conve- 
niences. Beneath that was a square tin tub, 
made to fit so as to economize all the space ; 
the whole only taking up the room of the 
toilette table. The stand was set on casters, 
and could be rolled out wherever convenient. 
In a drawer was a piece of India-rubber 



30 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

cloth, that could be spread over the carpet 
during the bathing operation. On the table 
was a plain square oak wood box, very neatly 
made, with a lock, in which all the toilet arti- 
cles could be kept. 

Salinda was looking at everything in silence, 
and Mrs. Savery began to wonder if she was 
contrasting it with the rosewood work of her 
room at the hotel. She was. And her opinion 
burst involuntarily from her lips. 

"How much more sensible — how neat — how 
convenient — how good — and yet "-^ 

Mrs. Savery furnished her the word — "eco- 
nomical." 

" Yes, and yet how much more economical. 
I snppose this did not cost half the money ?" 

" I cannot answer tliat. It only cost lis a 
little time — odd time — wasted hours with most 
mechanics. Mr. Savery is a carpenter, and 
almost everything in the house is the work of 
his own hands, or some of his workmen, when 
business was slack, or between jobs, or in some 
spare hour. That box is the work of a poor 
lame boy, whom Mr. Savery used to allow to 
come into the shop and make little articles 



THE OAKEN BOX. 31 

which he sold in the street to help his mother, 
until — well, well, no matter." 

" Oh yes, pray tell me, until what ?" 

In the mean time Salinda was examining 
the box, finding it was really a very excellent 
piece of workmanship, and " much like one of 
her mother's." 

"Until one day my husband was passing 
through another street, he met a lady just 
coming out of a little wood-worker's shop, 
with that box in her hand. She knew Mr. 
Savery very well, and exclaimed as she saw 
him: 

" Oh dear, I am caught in the very act. I 
was just going to carry this box to you as a 
present — a little token of remembrance from 
a poor boy, who through your kindness is 
making a good living for himself and his old 
mother." 

" Mr. Savery was surprised ; he did not 
know what it m^eant ; but she took him by 
the arm, and led him into the shop, and there 
was the poor lame boy, with just as much as 
he could do : and he had employed two other 
lame boys to help him. Overhead, in com- 



32 ECONOMY ILLrSTEATED. 

fortable apartments, lived the old lady, not 
only well provided for now, but her son was 
in a miich fairer way than some whole young 
men of gaining wealth, and a respectable posi- 
tion in society. 

" I am indebted to you, first, and this good 
lady second, for all this;" said he, as he hopped 
forward on his crutches to meet my husband. 
"You gave me the chance to learn to work, 
and she gave me the means." 

" Oh, what a dear, good woman — ^how I 
should like to know her." 

" You do — it was your mother." 

" Oh, Heaven bless her. How much cause 
I have to love my mother. That box will be 
almost an idol in my eyes. It will be a 
prompter every morning and evening, to teach 
me to pray for that mother, and the spread of 
such a spirit as animates her heart, throughout 
the world." 

A tear started to Mrs. Savery's eye — it was 
a tear of gladness, to think what a train of 
happy circumstances had grown out of so tri- 
fling an act of kindness as that of her husband, 
in permitting the poor boy to exercise his 



TRUNKS AND BANDBOXES. 33 

natural skill as a wood-worker in his shop, 
instead of abruptly driving him away " about 
his own business." 

Mr. Savery was made quite happy in the 
evening, when his wife related what a pleasing 
influence the reminiscence had had upon the 
mind of their young friend. 

About the time Mrs. Savery had got through 
showing Salinda all the rooms in the house, 
and that everything had its place, the porter 
from the hotel arrived with her trunks and 
bandboxes, and all the trappings that a modem 
lady contrives to carry with her on a journey, 
in defiance of all the rules of economy of dress, 
money, or time. 

" Oh dear, where shall I put them all," she 
thought as she looked out upon the great bar- 
row load ; '' I am sure I wish half of them 
were back again, and back I will send them, 
that is positive. I told mother I should not 
want them." Unconsciously, she thought 
aloud, and Mrs. Savery replied. 

" Oh no, do not send them back, it would 
only serve to make your mother think you do 
not intend to remain long. No doubt she 
2^ 



d4: ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

thonglit yon would be more contented, if you 
had everything here. Besides, it will serve to 
teach you your first lesson in economy — ^econo- 
my of space — the art of making a small house 
and contracted rooms serve the purpose of 
larger ones. We are all too extravagant in 
house room, when it is so expensive ^s it is in 
cities." 

" I thought people generally in large towns 
lived in too contracted space." 

" Perhaps the poor do, but the fault is more 
in want of ventilation, than in the narrowness 
of the apartments. The worst economy in the 
world, is the neglect to provide ourselves with 
fresh air. In a small room, filled with human 
beings, the whole atmosphere becomes actually 
poisonous, and destructive of health, and even 
life, for lack of ventilation. The amount of 
suffering in the Black Hole of Calcutta, is a 
lasting memento of this fact. A great many 
city houses are built with bedrooms in the 
centre, without any means of ventilation, 
except through an open door into a close 
room, where all the cooking, eating, and 
breathing of a large family are in constant 



ECONOMY OF VENTILATION. 35 

operation. In such rooms, human beings are 
expected to sleep and live. There is a great 
want of economy of life and health, in such 
buildings ; but we have no ' Board of Health,' 
to look after such ' seeds of contagion.' " 
'' But Frank, you say, sleeps in that room." 
" True. But look here. There is a Yene- 
tian blind window opening upon the passage, 
and here comes a pipe that brings fresh air 
from the outside of the house. In winter, it 
passes through the chimney, and gets warm. 
That opening in the ceiling is another pipe, 
that leads also into the chimney, high up, 
which gives it a draft, so that the air in this 
room is always pure. ISTow this ventilation 
costs but a trifle, but it saves many dollars, 
cost of medicine, and, perhaps, precious lives. 
It is true economy." 

'' And the other rooms, are they ventilated?" 
" Every one of them in the same way." 
"I have not seen any sign of the openings 
in any other room. How is it done ?" 

" You observed that work stand in your 
room, and spoke of the convenience of the 
foot-board. The air grate is underneath that." 



36 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

" Another economy of space. And is that 
hot or cold ?" 

" Both. Now notice the paper border of 
the room. Look up and all around, and see 
if you can tell which of those little black 
stripes are openings into the ventilator ?" 

" By looking close, I see there are some in 
each corner of the room. They are admirably 
contrived, and I should think the air could 
never get very bad." 

" 'Noj not if there were twenty persons 
sleeping here." 

" But your house is not fully warmed by 
hot air, is it ?" 

" No ; because we have no furnace. "We 
only economize the heat of the kitchen fire. 
"When Mr. Savery built the house, he inserted 
a hollow cast-iron chest in the back of the 
chimney, where it would always take up the 
waste heat that usually escapes up the flue, till 
it is often hot fifty feet from the fire. Into 
the bottom of this chest, a pipe opens from 
out doors, and another from the top, leads the 
heated air to every room in the house. In the 
summer time the hot air is shut off*, and ano- 



WARMIKG THE HOUSE. 37 

tlier opening brings the air fresh and sweet 
from the flower garden." 

" I notice anew form of stove in the sitting 
room." 

" No, the stove is the old form of air-tight 
wood stoves^ — ^great economizers of fuel — and 
that is a new attachment, called Tillman's 
Radiator. You see it is a hollow drum set up 
endwise, just behind the stove, through which 
the smoke pipe passes several times up and 
down. At that end next the floor, the cold 
air, which always falls by its speciflc gravity 
to the bottom of the warm room, comes in 
among the hot pipes, and there absorbs nearly 
all the heat, which thus escapes from the top 
into the room, and thus by preventing the heat 
from escaping up the chimney, saves nearly one 
half the cost of producing it. I am told that 
where these radiators have been attached to a 
large and expensive coal stove in a public 
room, that it enabled the occupants to sit 
quite back, with more comfort than they used 
to find in close proximity with the stove." 
" And not burn any more fuel ?" 
" Not half as much. Instead of radiator 



38 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

it should be called the economizer of heat and 
creator of comfort." 

" My mother says that comfort, health, and 
religion, are very closely connected." 

^'Your mother is right. I don't believe 
pure religion can dwell with squalid poverty 
and discomfort. The poor, miserable irreli- 
gious portion of mankind must be clothed, 
and fed, and better housed and cared for, 
before they can enjoy the holy influence of 
religion. It is a sad waste of time and 
money, to endeavor to civilize and Christianize 
such people by an occasional sermon. Dirt 
and wretchedness work no good influences 
upon the human mind. But dear me, how we 
have run off from the subject. I was going to 
show you how to dispose of the contents of 
your trunks, even in your small room." 

" That trunk is full of books. I need not 
unpack them." 

" Of all things else, your books should be in 
sight, where at any moment you can lay your 
hand upon the one of your choice. Books 
are great economizers of little waste bits of 
time. They gather them all up into a garner 



THE BOOK SHELVES. 39 

that will last for ever. Besides I sliall be glad 
to have Lillie profit by your store ; in it she 
will find something new and useful." 

" Indeed she will. I have got some choice 
books, and she and Frank shall be most 
welcome. But where can I put them ?" 

" I have thought of that. Your mother 
told me that you had a good many, and asked 
us if you should bring them all. We said all. 
Mr. Savery said he would provide for them. 
ISTow see here." 

She went out and brought in a set of 
hanging book shelves. The lower one was 
about three feet long, and the upper one half 
that length, so that when the cord was hung 
up on the strong iron hook in the wall and 
the shelves filled, it formed a pyramidal pile 
of books, literally "four stories" high and 
very neat and pretty. 

Salinda was delighted. It was plenty large 
enough for all her books, and as she remarked 
when it was finished, as it hung over the work 
table, it took up no room. 

" There now, only think of the economy of 
that. Mr. Savery made it entirely in an hour 



40 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

last evening. For your present purpose, it is 
just as good as though it cost' forty dollars." 

" It is indeed. How fast I am learning my 
new lessons. I will buy a yard of gauze and 
make a curtain to keep off the flies, still 
leaving all the books in sight, to tempt me, as 
you say, to fill up all my odd moments. I 
wish I knew how to hang up my dresses as 
well ; but I don't see any room upon the wall 
for half I have. I suppose I have got twice 
too many, but it was not my fault altogether. 
The bureau will hold all my small things, and 
this cupboard the remainder ; but don't you 
think dresses are better hung up ?" 

" Certainly, and I have provided for that, too, 
without taking up any room. This curtain 
you will never want to draw back any further 
than the foot of the bed; there, see, it draws 
back so far and stops, leaving it hanging 
between your beds. Kow look again, from 
the iron rod that holds the curtains, I have 
suspended these little brass hooks by these 
cords, upon which, if you like, you can hang 
twenty dresses, and Lillie will hang hers on 
the other side. Then we will pin a light 



MAKING MOST OF LITTLE ROO:M. 41 

calico curtain over the whole, and they will 
be just as well protected from dust as though 
in your wardrobe that cost a hundred dollars." 

'' I declare, Mrs. Savery, I never saw your 
equal for making a small house answer all the 
purposes of a large one. Oh, if Charley 
Goodman knew how much I have already 
learned, he would think my year of schooling 
well paid for, if I learned nothing more. I 
have got new ideas — new hopes — brighter 
prospects. If T go on in the same way 
gathering really useful information, I shall 
make him a wife, such as he never dreamed 
of. I must commence hanging up my dresses 
at once, and to-morrow I will get some stuff 
and make a curtain for both sides — for Lillie 
and myself. She has not hung hers yet." 

" No ; this is a new arrangement, made to 
suit the necessity of the occasion. When your 
parents applied to us, your father did not see 
how it would be possible for us to accommo- 
date you without discommoding ourselves. 
My husband told him that was one of the 
lessons- he was most anxious to teach a rich 
man's family, how to be comfortable, and have 



42 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

all the necessary conveniences of life in a 
small house, and thus save a great deal of ex- 
pensive rents. He says we are living in an 
extravagant period, and that economy is almost 
lost sight of, and hence so many disastrous 
failures. 

There now, don't your dresses hang nice. 
Do you begin to see that you have plenty of 
room, for all jour things, and nothing seems 
crowded. That book-case is really orna- 
mental. Lillie will be surprised and delighted 
when she comes from school." 

"I hope she will be as well pleased with her 
room-mate, as w^ith her books and other 
things." 

" That depends upon the disposition of both 
of you. I have no fears upon that point. 1 
think the benefit may be mutual, of your asso- 
ciating together. There are many things that 
you have learned at school, and in your inter- 
course with polished society, that you can ex- 
change with Lillie for what she has learned of 
the more practical affairs of life. Do you 
think you will be able to arrange all your 
things satisfactorily ?" . 



ECONOMY IN FURNITUKE. 43 

" I crai see a place for eveiytliing but my 
writing desk. I think I sliall have to bny a 
little table to stand there by the window, just 
to hold that, as it will take up too much room 
on the work-table." 

" That is all provided for. Tour mother 
spoke about that, and when Mr. Savery comes 
home this evening, he will bring a broad shelf 
and screw it upon the window sill, which will 
hold your desk just as well as a table that 
would cost two or three dollars, while the 
shelf will only cost as many cents." 

"And will be just as good. How easily 
you do teach me economy." 

"That should be tanght and practised in 
everything. One of these days I will tell you 
a pleasant story about a family of my acquain- 
tance that commenced life in a log cabin, and 
how they got along very happily upon such a 
small beginning, as would frighten some of our 
city people." 

"There now, with your assistance and ad- 
vice, I am getting all my things disposed of so 
nicely. Now I wish that empty trunk was 



44 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

at home again ; it will only be in the way 
here." 

" Far from it. Did I not see in your room 
at the hotel, a lounge about the size of that 
trunk. Your mother took her seat upon it, 
when you asked her to take the rocking-chair, 
saying that she preferred the lounge. Would 
you like to have such a one here for her to sit 
upon, if she likes it, when she calls to visit 
you?" 

" Certainly ; but not so expensive. I sup- 
pose that cost thirty or forty dollars." 

'^ And you can have just as good a one for 
one-tenth of that sum, and find a place for 
your trunk, where it won't be in your way." 

" Oh, do tell me how. You are so full of 
contriving, and money and labor saving, that 
it does seem as though you could not take a 
step without learning me something. Do you 
mean to buy such a lounge as that in Lillie's 
room. I should be perfectly satisfied with 
that ; it is neat and good, but still I don't ex- 
actly understand what that has to do about 
disposing of my trunk." 



THE MAGIC CHAIK. 45 

" We will exercise a little of the magic art 
of house-keeping, and with a wave of our 
wand, transform the trunk into a useful, orna- 
mental piece of furniture. Look here." 

She walked over to where the lounge was 
standing and lifted the cushion on to a chair, 
and reached down under a little border ap- 
pended around the upper edge for orna- 
ment. 

There was a little click like turning a key in 
a lock, and presto, change, the pretty lounge 
was transformed into an open trunk. Salinda 
uttered an expression of astonishment, and 
declared she should not be surprised to see the 
table turn into a big arm-chair. 

" Tou need not ; but I thought you already 
understood that secret. Come with me into 
our room." 

There was a neat little round table standing 
in the centre of the room. At a touch it 
opened — one half wheeled round, and there 
sat Mrs. Savery in the other half, a very com- 
fortable arm chair, with her writing table 
before her, with all its conveniences. 

^' You see how easy it is to transform furni- 



4G ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

ture, and mate articles serve a double purpose. 
Tliis is an excellent contrivance for small 
rooms like ours. Mr. Savery saw one of tliese 
exhibited at some fair, and the patentee gave 
him permission to build one for himself. But 
let me show you about the trunk. You will, 
want about four yards of this sort of furniture 
covering ; it will cost 37^ cents a yard ; and 
you will want as many yards of stout muslin, 
to make the cushions. One is made fast to the 
trunk and covered, and the other in shape of a 
large pillow to sit up against the wall, or lay 
down to rest upon thus. The lower part of the 
trunk is just covered with the cloth slightly 
stuflFed to prevent the heads of the trunk nails 
from being seen, or felt. If at any time the 
trunk is wanted, for travelling, the whole can 
be taken off in five minutes. You shall cover 
yours with stuff to match Lillie's, and then if 
you should wish you can set the two together, 
and form a very comfortable place to lodge, or 
in case of slight indisposition to lounge near 
the window and work, or read, or sleep. 

^'I am surprised Mrs. Savery at your fertility 
of invention. But you have underrated the 



MATTRESS MAKING. 47 

cost. Toil forgot the expense of the hair for 
cushions." 

'' 'Noj I did not ; but you are deceived, it is 
not hair ; although it looks and feels so much 
like it. It is moss — generally called Spanish 
moss. It grows in long festoons upon all the 
trees of extensive forests in Mississippi, Louisi- 
ana, and other Southern States. If well pre- 
pared it is better than poor hair. There is 
another cheap article for cushions and mat- 
tresses lately introduced called German grass. 
It is a product of the sea." 

'^ Pray tell me if your nice mattresses are all 
made of moss?" 

"AH but one, and that is the poorest in the 
house. We bous^ht that as it is." 

"Bought that as it is? Did you not buy 
them all as they are ?" 

" Oh no, we made them ourselves. Tliey 
are better and cheaper than we could buy 
them. It is a very easy job to make a mat- 
tress." 

" Did you ever use cotton for mattresses ?" 

"No; I was inclined to do so, but Mr. 
Savery soon convinced me that it is not a good 



48 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

material. It is so miicli of a non-conductor, 
tliat it grows hot under the body, and some- 
times gets damp and musty, and of course 
unhealthy. Cotton packs together too closely. 
It is not as good either, for covering, as gene- 
rally used in thick comforters, as blankets. 
Cotton batting after a little use gets so matted 
that it is almost as impervious to air, as an 
India rubber coat." 

"What are your lower mattresses made of?" 

"Some are corn husks, some straw, some 
German grass, and we have one made of beech 
leaves. I like that best of all. The material 
is very cheap, sweet, clean, and durable, and 
sufficiently elastic. Anything is better than 
feathers, to sleep upon." 

" I don't know how you find time to make 
everything." 

" Time is provided by the good giver of all 
gifts, for us all to use for our benefit, and if 
we only improve it as w^e should, we never 
shall know what it is to want time to do 
everything necessary for our comfort. I 
endeavor to economize time, as well as every- 
thing else, and teach my children to do the 



TIIE RAG CAUPET. 49 

same. I never task them, so that their time 
drags heavy, and thus they make work a 
recreation. If you should ask Lillie, and 
Frank, and Susan, when they found time to 
make this carpet, they could hardly tell you." 

" Tou don't mean to say this is home made 
too?" 

" Not altogether. Yet it is all the product 
of home labor. The girls prepared the rags, 
and the weaver found the warp, and gave us 
half the piece." 

Where did you get the materials ?" 

*' By never wasting a rag. Every family 
could save old clothes enough in a few years, 
to make a rag carpet. I must acknov/ledge, 
however, in this case, that we got a great part 
of our stock from a friend. Mrs. Doolittle 
saw us at work one day and offered to give 
me a barrel full of old clothes, 'just fit for 
carpet rags.' She said she w^as sure she 
should be glad to get rid of them, though 
it grieved me to see such waste. There were 
coats that could not have cost less than $30 
each, and pants, and boys' clothes, and one 
fine cape that had been worn by the girls, 
3 



50 ECONOMY ILLTJSTEATED. 

with a great spot of paint on it ; and the 
whole so eaten by moths as to spoil them for 
anything but carpet rags. And then to think 
that every moth conld have been kept away 
with a sixpence worth of camphor gnm. And 
that spot of paint, if treated when fresh, with 
a little camphene, which is always the most 
convenient of anything where it is used, or 
with alcohol, or spirits of turpentine, conld 
have been washed out with five minutes' 
labor." 

" Probably it was thrown down in a pet, 
when the accident happened, and never look- 
ed at again." 

" Yes, that is it, and so left for the moths to 
destroy, and finally given away for carpet 
rags, because the family never have any time 
for such work themselves." • 

" What do they do ?" 

"You shall go and see one of these days ; 
or I will tell you, and you can afterwards see 
if I am correct. Mr. Doolittle was a country 
blacksmith, living on a little farm all his own, 
surrounded with country comforts. On the 
plea of educating the two girls, his wife per- 



YOUNG ladies' OCCUPATION. i>i 

suaded liim to move into town, and extend 
liis business. He lias been vei\y successful, 
and has need to be, but he works like a slave, 
and his wife and the ' young ladies,' are 
ashamed to have him come to the table when 
they have company, because he looks so ; he 
is not dressed as they are, who never lift a fin- 
ger for any useful labor. Mrs. Doolittle 
keeps a cook and two chambermaids, and 
hires a woman to do lier ' fine washing.' She 
is for ever in the street, or making calls, and 
three nights in the w^eek at the theatre or 
some concert. The girls work green lions, 
and blue parrots, in red landscapes, in worsted 
work for chair bottoms that are never used ; 
and paint odd-looking animals, among odder- 
looking folks who are supposed to live in 
remarkable houses, w^hich the mother calls 
everybody to look at, as ' my daughter's first 
effort.' It is an effort to look at it without 
laughing at folly, or crying at such a waste of 
time." 

'' I declare I shall be careful never to 
expose any of my fancy work to such a bitter 
critic." 



62 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Bitter ! Is truth bitter ? It is only so to 
those who feel guilty of such a waste of time. 
But it is not worse wasted than in their read- 
ing." 

'' Why Mrs. Savery, don't you approve of 
reading works of fiction — novels — or works not 
strictly confined to actual incidents of life ?" 

'' Certainly I do, such books as these ; but 
for girls like Mrs. Doolittle's daughters to 
read all night long such books as those 
WTitten by Paul De Ivock, or George Sand, 
or even the ghostly stories of Harrison Ains- 
worth, The Mysteries of Udolpho, or similar 
things — destructive as such reading is to the 
body, it is still more so to the mind, and no 
girl can maintain her purity in such a hot-bed 
of moral disease. If nothing worse happens, 
it is more than likely, that the mind will be 
so corrupted by lascivious books perused in 
solitude that health, happiness, and life will 
be sacrificed upon this burning altar of 
Moloch." 

'' You m.ake me fairly tremble at the conse- 
quences of such readiiig. But I am glad that 
you do not deprecate all v/orks of fiction." 



NOVEL READLN-G. 53 

"Bj no means. The most attractive form 
in which history can be taught is in romance. 
Even religion and morals maybe dressed in 
a garb purely fictitious, and made to serve a 
holy purpose. The very worst and most dan- 
gerous immoralities of our social system, may 
be so treated in works of a fictitious character, 
that the reader will learn to avoid the dans^er. 
Look at the temperance tales of T. S. 
Arthur, and many others : how much good 
they have done. But reading, like eating, or 
drinking, or sleeping, or labor, should never 
be carried to an excess. No young mind can 
properly digest a whole volume upon any 
subject, at one hasty perusal. No one should 
read more than an hour or two at a time. You 
might as well try to eat enough at once to last 
a week, or do a month sleeping all in one nap. 
Habitual novel readers get their minds so cor- 
rupted; the senses so dulled by continual over- 
doses, that they are only content to glance 
through a novel so as to get at the main inci- 
dents of the story, and the more extravagant 
and exciting those are, the better they are 



54 ECONOMY ILLrSTKATED. 

pleased with the book, which has no value in 
their eyes, after having been thus snperficially 
read." 

''I wish you would give me a catalogue of 
such books as you would recommend for a 
small family library." 

" There come the children from school, and 
Lillie will furnish you with one I have already 
prepared for her. It might be greatly ex- 
tended, but you will find in it the names of 
some admirable volumes that v/ill never grow 
old and useless." 

Lillie and Frank came bounding up stairs 
full of natural curiosity to see the new comer 
and all her things. They first gave a respect- 
ful greeting to their mother, as they always 
did after a day's absence, and at night they 
never J) art ed from her or each other without 
a kiss, and never met in the morning without 
a pleasant recognition, sometimes expressed in 
their native tongue, and sometimes in French, 
which they were studying. From her mother, 
Lillie turned to Salinda and gave her hand, 
saying : 



THE YOUNG FOLKS' GREETINa. 55 

^^Miss Lovewell, I am sincerely delighted 
to see you in our house, and in this room, 
where I hope we shall spend some pleasant 
and profitable hours together. I am glad to 
see how soon you are getting your things 
arranged as though you intend to be at home." 

And this, thought Salinda, comes from a 
girl— a mere common school girl, only fifteen 
years old, whose manners are superior to half 
the boarding-school young ladies in the coun- 
try. Oh, I shall love her, I know I shall. 
She felt as though she could clasp her to her 
heart, her words, her tone, and manner were 
all so kind. 

" Indeed Lillie, I feel at home. Tour 
mother has been so kind, and showed and 
helped me so much it is no wonder that I have 
got along so well. Indeed I shall be happy 
here, and as to the profit of the association, I 
fear I shall derive the whole of that. I must 
stipulate for one thing in the very outset, how- 
ever. You must not call me Miss Lovewell. 
It is too formal. It will be more familiar — 
more sisterly to call me Salinda. And Frank, 
brother Frank, you must call me so too." 



56 ECONOl^IY ILLTJSTEATED. 

In lier gushing affection slie caught Frank 
in her arms and kissed him heartily. 

If anything was lacking to tighten the cords 
of affection between her and the whole family, 
this little act completed it. 

" May I call her sister," said Frank, looking 
up for approval of his mother, whose look, nod, 
or word was law vvith him, that he never ap- 
pealed from. 

" With all my heart, if she is willing, and 
yon always act like a brother. It is the way 
all should live, who dwell under the same 
roof together." 

" And I never will offend von ac:ain bv the 
formal appellation of Miss Lovewell, while 
you call my brother yours also. But oh, 
what a sight of things, and what a pretty case 
of books. May I look at them ?" 

"Certainly, just as though they were your 
own — and Frank too." 

"But remember, cliildren, to use them as 
though they were another's, and always return 
them to their places. It is an act of fashion- 
able wickedness, to borrow and keep books, 
and it is equally bad to misuse them." 



EVE:NmG READING. 57 

" Oh mother, here is ' Father Brighthopes,' 
that cousin Josephine wrote to us about, whose 
character reminded her so much of uncle 
Ephraim. We must have it for some of our 
evening readings. The old man's cheerful 
disposition cures a whole family of the disease 
of ill temper, and creates happiness in every 
circle he enters. And here is another work 
by the same author, called 'Iron Tliorpe,' 
another good preacher of peace on earth and 
good will to men. We will read that too. 
Are you fond of reading loud, Salinda, 
because we all take turns at our evening read- 
ings?'" 

"I have never practised any, but will do 
my best. It belongs, I presume, to your gene- 
ral system of economy. All can w^ork, or rest, 
and listen to the reader, and all be equally 
interested." 

" That is not all," said Mrs. Savery, " it 
elicits conversation upon the topic treated of, 
and brings out explanation to children, of 
obscure passages. It is far better than any 
evening schools. It teaches old and young." 

" And here is another valuable work. It is 
3^ 



68 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

Lossing's Pictorial History of the United States. 
Have you read it Salinda?" 

" N05 but I will, since you commend it so 
highly." 

" Oh, I have learned more of our history by 
just looking over the pictures and reading here 
and there a sentence, than I could in six 
months' study of our old school history. 

Why here is the Charter Oak, and here is 
Peter Stuyvesant, the old Dutch Governor of 
New York, who planted the pear tree, brother 
Frank, that you read about the other day in 
the N'ew York Tribune, which has borne fruit 
two hundred years. And here is a block 
house ; well, I never knew what a block house 
was before. 

" Oh, here is a pretty little book with such 
a queer title — I declare we must read this to- 
night." 

" What is it, sister Lillie ?" 

" Lucy's Half-crown ; how she earned it and 
how she spent it. With some hints on the art 
of making people happy without money. 
Dear me, if it will do that, I would go around 
and read it to ever so many poor people that 



BOOKS TO BE READ. 69 

I know. It must be a good book for children. 
But did you ever read tlie Lu Lu books? 
They were w^ritten on purpose for children. 
Ah, here is one that father will like. It is 
Physiology and Phrenology, hj Mi's. L. N. 
Fowler. But the title page says it is designed 
for children and youth. Let us see what it 
says." 

" Why, Lillie, are you going through the 
whole book-case ? it is near tea-time. I ex- 
pect your father every minute." 

" Oh no, mother, but let me read one sen- 
tence in this book. 

" We were not created to serve and please ourselves 
alone, while we are surrounded by friends and acquaint- 
ances." 

"Love of approbation is one of the strongest motives and 
incentives to all our actions.'' 

" Don't you like that, mother? I do. I think 
that will be an interesting book. Have you 
read it, Salinda ?" 

" Not yet. It is one I lately bought." 
" Oh, here is one that we must study well. 
Mother, you told me about it ; and that I 



60 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

must read it as soon as I got old enougli to 
understand it fully." 

" What is it ?" 

" Domestic Economy for Young Ladies at 
Home, by Catherine E. Beecher." 

" Ah, that is one my mother said I must 
read, also. It is not a new work, but a very 
good one. Was you going to read something, 
Lillie?" 

" Only one sentence. I think your mother 
had just been reading it when she decided for 
you to come and live with my mother. This 
is it : — 

*'■ ' Whether rich or poor, young or old, married or single, 
a woman is always liable to be called to the performance 
of every kind of domestic duty, as well as to be placed at 
the head of a family ; and nothing short of a practical 
knowledge of the details of housekeeping can ever make 
those duties easy, or render her competent to direct others 
in their performance.' " 

" And very truthful it is too, and very 
important that both of you, girls, should 
treasure it up in your memory. It is the 
poorest economy in the world for a mother 
to hire a servant to sweep and clean her 



BOOKS AND THEIR CONTENTS. 61 

daughter's chamber. Sweeping is a healthy 
exercise, and the dust in a well-kept room is 
never as bad as yon often encounter in the 
street, or on the rail road. In sweeping a 
carpet, some damp substance should always 
be used — not sand, as some recommend. Tea 
leaves, or bran, any kind of leaves wet and 
scattered over the floor will keep dowm the 
dust. Never use a broom for any other 
purpose, that you use upon a carpet. What 
have you now, Lillie ?" 

" It is the Elements of Character, by Mary 
G. Chandler." 

" Ah, that is a good book. There is a very 
sensible chapter upon the subject of works of 
imagination." 

" Here is a passage ; one perhaps that you 
allude to mother. I will read a few lines : 

" Let the moralist talk and write against this as he may, 
it will be of no use, for the mass of human minds will never 
take an interest in any book that does not address itself to 
the imagination." 

" That is very true. But w^orks of imagina- 
tion are not all works of mere fiction. They 
may portray scenes of real life, in an imagina- 



62 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

tive form and attractive language. Do jon 
understand? Suppose any one who knows ns 
all very well should imagine what is our con- 
versation and write it down, it would be a 
work of imagination, yet not fiction, because 
it would contain much truth, and a fair picture 
of our e very-day life, and if well done, the 
reader would imagi7ie he saw each of us, and 
knew something of our cliaracter. It would 
be a work of imagination of both writer and 
reader." 

'' Now, mother, here is a book I should like 
to have one like. It is the Youth's Letter 
Writer. You have always told me that to be 
able to write a good letter, was one of the best 
accomplishments for a child." 

'' Which one is that, Lillie — I have several." 

" This is by Mrs. John Farrar. It appears 
to me as I glance over it, not only to give 
instructions in letter- writing, but in punctua- 
tion, syntax, &c. I shall look into that." 

*'I told you, Salinda," said Mrs. Savery, 
" that the first thing Lillie would see when she 
came in, would be the book-case." 

" Do look here, mother ; here is not only the 



PUNCTUALITY. 63 

Complete Cook-book, but all the family. Let 
me see : one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
comprising cooking and all sorts of house- 
work, amusements and economical articles. 
And here is, the American Frugal Housewife, 
dedicated to those who are not ashamed of 
economy — that will suit us. 

And what is this? — Oh, there comes father." 
And away she bounded down stairs to tell 
him all the news in advance, before he sat 
down to tea. The others followed, Mrs. Sa- 
very remarking ''that clock-work was not 
more regular than her husband, and that 
Susan's bell would ring in two minutes if they 
were not down in that time after he shut the 
front door. Every famil}^ should have regular 
hours for meals, and every family should be 
punctual. Nothing disturbs the equanimity 
ol temper in a woman worse than waiting for 
people to come down to breakfast, or other 
meals when they have nothing in the world to 
hinder them. It is bad economy too, for she 
can do nothing while waiting, and many a 
good hour is lost by such inattention. 

Mr. Savery was one of those warm-hearted 



64 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

men that send a thrill to the heart through 
the honest meaning shake of the hand. He 
did more than that to Salinda. He looked 
upon her more like an elder daughter just 
returned from a long absence — indeed it was 
some six years since he had seen her — and he 
not only took her by the hand, but he took her 
in his arms and gave her a most affectionate 
kiss, bidding her welcome to her new home 
with a smile, she told her mother, ''that 
seemed to come from the heart, and spread 
over his face with a radiance of love. It is no 
wonder that his children love him so — who 
could help it ?" 

It is certain that Salinda, with her warm 
nature, could not, if she had tried, which was 
the furthest thing from her mind. 

Strange feelings too, this embrace gave her. 
It was the first fond parental one she had ever 
received since she was a child. 

Her father was a good father, and fond of 
this his only child, but he was one of those 
precise pieces of formality that never kiss a 
wife or grown-up daughter, for fear it might 
" spoil her ;" or because it looked so childish 



PAKENTAL AFFECTIOK AND ITS EFFECTS. 65 

to be always petting one. And Salinda would 
as soon have thought of putting her arms 
around a marble statue and kissing its cold 
lips, as oflering such an act of affection to her 
father. It was this that made her feel now as- 
though she had suddenly burst into a new ex- 
istence. 

"I felt," she wrote years afterwards, ''as 
though a chain that had hitherto held me in a 
cold atmosphere had suddenly broke, and I 
bounded forward into a life of love. I knew 
from that moment I was a better girl, and pre- 
pared to be a wiser and a happier woman. If 
that chain had not been broken, I might have 
carried that same cold heart to my husband's 
arms, and never known the blessed influence of 
fond affection, which has been the soother of 
every affliction, and given me strength to per- 
form all the duties of a wife and mother. I 
give credit to that first fond embrace, and its 
subsequent teachings, for much of my happy 
life's enjoyments." 

Salinda was a little surprised to see Lillie 
take the seat opposite the tea things, instead 



66 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

of her mother. The latter saw what was pas- 
sing in her mind and said : 

" I am learning Lillie, while I am well, to 
do what her father would require if I was sick, 
or away. I shall ask you to take the same 
place by and by." 

"When all were seated, Mr. Savery said, 
^'Are we all ready ? Then let us ask Him who 
giveth food, to give us thankful hearts." 

For a minute all were silent, and then Lillie 
took up the tea-pot, and offered her mother a 
cup of tea. Mrs. Savery replied, ''To-night, at 
least, Salinda is a stranger — you will serve her 
first. That is a simple act of good breeding." 

Now each member offered to another such 
dishes as were convenient to the offerer, until 
all were served. 

Salinda was struck with admiration of the 
table furniture. Mr. Savery was a man in 
humble circumstances, yet the service was 
rich, though very plain. The sugar bowl, 
cream jug, spoons, and forks were all silver. 
The tea-pot was some cheaper, though good 
white metal. The crockery was all pure 



THE TEA TAELE. 67 

white, plain stone china, laid upon a clean oil- 
cloth. There was white and brown home-made 
bread, and sweet butter, baked apples sugared, 
cheese, and corned beef. Enough certainly, 
but Mrs. Savery said she would venture to say 
that Susan had something else to surprise 
them with. Lillie said, "Father you were not 
home to dinner, and you must be hungry." 

Away she ran and brought a nice plate of 
cold baked beans and a slice of sweet fat pork. 
It is a universal Yankee dish, and a very good 
and economical one. 

''Thank you pet," said Mr. Savery, "you 
know my taste exactly. But you should not 
offer a dish to one at table without offering 
to all." 

All declined, but she said, "You have 
learned me something which I will remember." 

"I told you so," said Mrs. Savery; "I 
never knew her to fail, if any stranger was 
here. What have you there Susan ?" 

" Only some little corn cakes for Lillie and 
Frank, they are so fond of them." 

She set down a plate of cakes about as large 
around as the rim of a coffee cup, and about a 



68 ECONOISIY ILLrSTEATED. 

quarter of an inch thick. Salinda thought 
them delicious ; she had never seen anything 
like them before. 

"How are they made? I am so ignorant of 
everything, that I shall ^appear to you a perfect 
know-nothing." 

Susan was called in for an explanation. 

" I mix the meal and water, with a little 
salt, into a well-kneaded, stiff dough, and then 
I take a lump in my hands and flat it down 
nearly as thin as this. So I go on till I get all 
I want laid upon my pie board " 

Mrs. Savery interrupted her with a remark 
that, ''Susan never put dough on the table, no 
matter how small the batch." 

" Sometimes I add a little flour as I finish 
kneading. Then I pass the rolling-pin over 
them till all are of an even thickness. Then I 
have my griddle hot, and lift the cakes on a 
broad bladed cake turner — it is like a painter's 
spatula — and then clap a hot lid of a bake- 
oven over them, taking care not to scorch 
them, and I don't care hovv^ hot the lid is. It 
is tlie only way that corn meal can be cooked 
quick. It needs more cooking than any other 



TEA-TABLE TALK. 69 

kind of bread-stuff. Do you think these are as 
good as usual? I did not think of making 
them until just as you were coming down. 
I had to hurry a little too much." 

All expressed themselves pleased, and Salin- 
da took particular notice of the directions for 
making, as she thought them truly delicious, 
and all the better that the cost was so trifling. 

Frank held up his saucer to Lillie, and sim- 
ply said, " If you please, sister." She under- 
stood him, and poured it full of sweet milk. 
Turning to Salinda she said, " Do follow 
Frank's example — ^you don't know how nice 
these wafers — tliat is what we call them — are 
in milk." She did follow suit, and thought 
she had never tasted a sweeter morsel of 
wholesome food in her life. 

" I have eaten mush — or as Barlow calls it 
in his poem, hasty pudding — and milk, but 1 
am not fond of it, for it always seems to me 
that it has a raw taste." 

" That is because it is hasty pudding," 
said Susan. " Mush cannot be cooked in less 
than one hour, and it is better to be cooked 
four hours. I am very careful to stir my meal 



70 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

slowlj into boiling water, so as to have no 
lumps, and keep stirring it almost as long as I 
can move the pudding-stick, and then let it 
boil as long as it will blubber up, stirring it 
frequently. I then set it off the hot fire and 
let it simmer by the hour. If we are to have 
mush for supper, I generally make it while the 
range is hot with tlie dinner cooking, as well 
to save fire, as that it is so much better." 

" And still better, Susan," said Mr. Savery, 
'* when you fry it for breakfast. But after all, 
the great secret in having anything good, is to 
have it properly cooked." 

" Not altogether sir, for the best cook in the 
world cannot make good bread or mush of corn 
meal if it is badly ground. I recollect reading 
when I was quite a child, in Judge Buel's 
paper, called the Cultivator, ' that no grain 
but corn could be absolutely spoiled for human 
food, by being ground too fine,' — I believe that 
can ; for example, it increases in goodness 
from corn flour, up to coarse hominy, or grains 
of corn hulled." 

"There is another thing you believe about 
corn, Susan." 



ABOUT CORN ISIEAL. 71 

"What is that, sir? in the economy of its 
use, and wholesomeness, if sufficiently cooked?" 

" Yes, and that none but pure white corn 
should ever be eaten by man." 

" Yes, sir, I do ; because it contains more 
starch and less oil, and always keeps sweeter. 
The yellow variety is best to make pigs grow 
fat fast. It is not so easily digested by human 
stoma.chs." 

" Susan, w^ill you tell this young lady how 
you keep a barrel of meal sweet through hot 
weather?" 

" I think sir, you might tell that, for you 
showed me. It is very easy, though. Mr. 
Savery just nailed three strips of board, about 
two inches wide, into a triangular tube, and 
bored it full of small holes, and I set that up 
in the centre of my meal barrel, which allows 
the air to reach the middle of the meal, and it 
never gets musty." 

" Somebody," said Mr. Savery, " has pa- 
tented a process for keeping flour in the same 
way, by inserting a tin tube." 

" I don't see, father," said Lillie, " how flour 
can spoil, when it is so perfectly dry." 



72 ECOIS'OMY ILLUSTRxVTED. 

"There is your error. A good barrel of 
flour contains from twelve to sixteen pounds of 
water. 

All seemed astonished at this, but none 
doubted it, because Mr. Saverj never made 
such a statement before his children, without 
good authority. 

Salinda took up the silver sugar bowl to look 
at the mark. It was perfectly plain, but solid 
and strong. She w^ondered to herself whether 
their table had been set with a few extras, be- 
cause she was present. Mrs. Savery was pos- 
sessed w^ith large intuitive faculties. She 
perceived wdiat w^as in Salinda's thoughts, and 
replied to them just as though they were 
spoken. 

"No, w^e never make any change in our 
table — it is the same in food and furnishing, 
whether strangers are present or not. We use 
silver, simply because it is economical ; so we 
use it every day. In some families, it is kept 
for show ; and so is a set of gilt china. We 
have nothing but w^hat is useful, and for every 
day use, and we aim to have everything that 
is necessary and convenient. "We use an oil- 



TABLE FURNITUEE. 73 

clotli upon the tea table, because we deem a 
table cloth unnecessary. We use a white cloth 
at breakfast and dinner, because we then have 
meats with gravies, which if spilled accident- 
ally will be absorbed by the cloth, and not run 
off as they might from the oil-cloth and spoil 
somebody's dress." 

''And," said Mr. Savery, "more than any- 
thing else, because we are accustomed to the 
sight of the white linen, and should not feel 
quite satisfied without it. And that is the true 
reason why we use many other things — habits, 
fashion, long-continued use, without inquiring 
why or wherefore, binds us in a perfect bond- 
age. Half the women in large towns go to 
their meals just as a slave goes to his; because 
they are bid. They are not hungry, but the 
hour has come. They never know what they 
are to have upon their own table. They look 
upon the ordinary duties of life as beneath 
their notice, and therefore hire a housekeeper 
to do just what every woman would be more 
womanly if she did hei^elf. If a mother lends 
her mind and hands to make her house a 
happy home, she will rarely find occasion to 

4 



n ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

complain of husband or children seeking 
pleasure in improper places. 

'• One of the first duties of every woman, 
whether a mother or not, who is placed at the 
head of a family, should be to inform herself 
of the quality of provisions, and how they 
should be cooked, best to promote economy 
and health. 

" An article that is very suitable for v/inter 
food, may be quite improper for summer. 
For instance, fat meat, or strong animal food 
of any kind, gives out heat to the body, while 
fruits on the other hand are cooling. Buck- 
wheat cakes, which we are so fond of in cold 
weather, would not be at all suitable in mid- 
summer. Again, food should be suited to the 
diflerent stages of life. What would nourish 
an adult, would kill a babe. A hard laborer 
can eat fat meat and crude vegetables; but 
such a diet would never suit a literary person, 
or any one that lives much within doors. The 
more oxygen is taken into the lungs, the more 
food can the stomach digest. Every person 
who has the care of a family, should study 
Baron Liebig's Familiar Letters on Chemistry, 



PKOPEE FOOD FOK MAN. lb 

in which he gives the relative proportion of 
flesh-producing amd warmth-giving power of 
various substances, which proves the value of 
a variety of food. Sugar is one of the cheap- 
est articles of human food, because it has a 
great deal of the oxygen-feeding property con- 
centrated in its substance ; but because of that 
concentration it cannot be used alone. It 
must be mixed with farinaceous food, or with 
fruits, and eaten in small quantities at a time, 
and then it may, in fact should be made a part 
of our daily diet. Crude vegetables have but 
very little of the life-sustaining principles in 
their composition, yet they are extremely 
valuable to distend the stomach, and mix with 
the meat during the progress of digestion. A 
man could not live upon sugar, starch, and 
glue, notwithstanding they contain the very 
substances that the chemical laboratory of the 
stomach extracts from the coarser articles he 
consumes. The stomach can create nothing. 
It only digests, separates, appropriates or dis- 
solves the different portions of food received. 
If we are by the sea-side, or breathing dry 
mountain air, or the cold air of winter, we 



76 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

have no occasion to tickle our palates with, 
pickles, spices, or any of the various condi- 
ments in use among the dwellers in cities, to 
provoke an appetite. Almost everybody eats 
too much. Children should never be tempted 
to eat more than the stomach can readily 
digest. Many mothers, by continually stuffing, 
make gluttons of their children. 

" Food has been so cheap in America, that 
all classes have acquii-ed a habit of over-eating, 
particularly meats, and the consequence is a 
national complaint of dyspepsia. 

" The foundation of many a profligate's life 
has been laid by an over-indulgent mother, 
who incites an appetite, which must be after- 
wards pampered. 

''Few house-keepers understand the true 
principles of preparing food in the best manner 
to promote health ; and in many families, chil- 
dren are allowed to partake of articles daily 
seen upon the table, because their parents and 
other adults do, that are positivelj^ injurious to 
their infantile systems. Ho mother should 
allow articles to be placed upon her table, 
that experience teaches her are injurious to 



TEUE AET OF COOKEEY. 77 

any member of the family. And where she 
lacks experience, education should furnish her 
the power of discrimination. I would make 
the act of preparing food, a part of the educa- 
tion of every child, male or female, but parti- 
cularly the latter. 

*'To preserve all the nourishing qualities of 
meat, and still leave it digestible, is the great 
art of cookery. 

"But, excuse me, wife, and joii too, girls, I 
am trenching on Mrs. Savory's ground. It is 
for her to teach you the art of cooking. I 
only intended to speak of the philosophy of 
food, and not the details of preparation." 

All expressed themselves deeply interested, 
and begged him to go on. Mrs. Savery 
remarked to Salinda, that she must expect to 
hear these tea-table lectures frequently. 

"True," said Mr. Savery, "I have always 
made it a point, at this meal at least, for then 
we have the most leisure, that my children 
should always be able to say, ^I have learnt 
one thing more than I knew before.' I think 
the tea-table the most fitting place for a re- 
union of all the family, in the enjoyment of 



78 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

interclians:© of information. To ns who labor 
all day, it is a delightful relaxation, and soother 
of our minds, after a day of toil. The tea-table 
is the best place for a father to discover the 
disposition of children, as well as a proper 
place to teach them politeness. 

"It is a great error with all who have the 
charge of youth, particularly girls, that do- 
mestic economy forms no part of their studies. 

" Your mother was very right, when she said 
that no girl was fit for a wife that did not 
know how to prepare all the principal dishes 
used in a family. It would save every one 
days of pain and mortification, when she was 
placed in a position to do her own work or 
direct others how to do it, if she was taught 
herself before that day of necessity arrived. 
Ko lady ever felt happy and comfortable in 
her own house, while she knew that her 
kitchen girl knew more than her mistress. It 
is the worst possible economy, thus to neglect 
the education of a girl, because as a woman, 
she cannot tell whether those in her employ 
are wasteful or saving. I don't believe one 
woman in ten knows how to perform the simple 



BOILINa A PIECE OF MEAT. 79 

operation of boiling a piece of meat. Do you 
Salinda?" 

" Why, yes sir, I have seen that done so 
often, that I should not hesitate, though I 
might fail in more difficult cooking." 

" Tellus then how you have seen meat pre- 
pared for boiling." 

" Our old cook at the school used to put 
her meat in a pot of cold water in the morning 
and let it soak, to grow tender, she said, till 
towards noon, and then put it on a brisk fire 
and keep it boiling as hard as possible till 
done." 

" And then throw away the pot liquor ?" 

" 'Not at once. She always set it away to 
get cold and then took off the fat. Of course 
she would throw away the remainder — what 
else could she do with it ?" 

'' It is just as I expected. She threw away 
nearly all the gelatine of the meat, and saved 
the fibre for food, which contained but little 
more sustenance than so much straw. Did 
you ever observe the pot liquor when it looked 
like jelly?" 



80 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Yes sir, often ; but I did not know but 
that was always boiled out of the meat." 

"It cannot be boiled out; but it is almost 
always soaked out by just such a foolish pro- 
cess as you describe. Cold water dissolves 
the albumen of the flesh, and hot water 
hardens it, or rather cooks it in the substance 
of the meat. 

" To satisfy yourself, break an egg in cold 
water, and let it soak as long as the cook did 
her meat, and then boil it and see what has 
become of the white. It will be dissipated 
through the water. !Now drop an egg into 
boiling water, and see how quick the white 
coagulates, and forms a compact mass around 
the yolk. It is just so with a piece of beef. 
It contains a somewhat similar substance, that 
dissolves, or soaks out, in cold water, and is 
lost, unless for soup, and then the meat always 
should be put into cold water an hour or more 
before it is put to boil. But meat that is to 
be eaten, should never be soaked a minute in 
cold water, but should be plunged at once all 
over in water boiling hot. This at once coagu- 



PHILOSOPHY OF EOASTIKO AND BOILING. 81 

lates the albumen, all over tlie surface, and 
prevents loss of weight or nutritive quality. 
It is idle to try to force the pot to boil harder 
as many do, because the heat of boiling water 
cannot be increased, and meat will cook in a 
temperature of 165 degrees. It only needs 
the full heat of boiling water until the blood 
and albumen is set, and then it cannot be dis- 
solved and made to escape in the water. 

" A piece of meat put down to roast, should 
be brought as near a hot fire as possible at 
first, and not suffered to heat and stew slowly. 
Let the outside be slightly browned as soon as 
possible and then you may cook slow. In fact 
this rule will apply to almost everything — 
meat, fish, bread, vegetables. Potatoes should 
never be put in cold water. If dropped one 
by one into boiling water, they will never be- 
come sodden. You heard what Susan said 
of those little com cakes — she put them 
between two hot irons until the outside was 
crusted over — that should be the rule with all 
bread and meat, roasting, baking, or boiling, 
unless you want to extract the juice of the 
meat for soup. The great secret of the good- 
4* 



82 ECOKOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

ness of roast potatoes is, because tliey are put 
into very hot ashes or embers, that cooks the 
outside at once. 

" There now, that will do for this evening's 
lecture. If too long continued, we shall tire 
our new pupil." 



THE S AVERTS BREAKFAST. 83 



CHAPTER III. 

The Saver js Breakfast. 

Precisely at six o'clock the next morning, 
Susan's bell rung for breakfast, and in pre- 
cisely five minutes afterwards, all were seated 
around a snow-white cloth, and a breakfast fit 
for an epicure. It was now the month of 
May, and Mr. and Mrs. Savery, and Frank, 
had all been out in the garden at work for an 
hour ; Lillie would have been with them, but 
for Salinda and her books. It was delightful 
w^hen Lillie met her parents, to see how 
pleasantly she said good morning mother — ■ 
how do you do father — are you well brother ; 
and to hear their kind expressions towards 
her and Salinda, made the latter feel as 
though she would not exchange her present 
situation for hotel life, or boarding school, 
upon any consideration whatever. 

" Mother," said Lillie, "I shall serve you first 
this morning, since Salinda begs that she may 



84 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

not be treated as a stranger. Will you have 
chocolate or tea? We have discarded the 
use of coffee," said she, addressing herself to 
Salinda, " but if you are wedded to it, I pre- 
sume you can have it." 

'•Thank you, I never take anything but 
black tea, not very strong, and only one cup 
at a meal." 

"Father will have chocolate, for that is 
about half his breakfast." 

As this meal was so much like our own 
ideas of proper eating, we are inclined to give 
some of the particulars. 

The remainder of yesterday's dinner of 
baked beans, was " warmed over," and the 
pork cut in small slices, white and cold 
on a plate. The little pieces of corned beef 
iiad all been chopped into a fine hash, w^ith 
some potatoes. All the dry bread had been 
made into a delicious dish of milk toast. 
Frank had a few radishes from his early 
planting, of which he was not a little proud. 
But what took the eye of Salinda most, was a 
smoking dish of grains of whole corn, as white 
as snow. She had never seen anything like 



HOMINY AND ECONOMY. 85 

it before. She had frequently seen what is 
called hominy, or samp, or hulled corn, but 
those dishes were unlike this, both in taste and 
looks. She asked, of course, for informa- 
tion. 

" This is a regular breakfast dish with us./' 
said Mrs. Savery. ''It is both nutritious and 
wholesome." 

" And economical," added Mr. Savery. 

" Yes, and to very many, that is the most 
important part of the consideration. For the 
last year it has not cost inuch more per bushel 
than the average price of potatoes ; and it cer- 
tainly contains more than double the nutri- 
ment, and not in too concentrated a form to 
be healthy. This is corn hulled by machinery, 
leaving the grain nearly whole. "We often 
make use of another kind of hominy, made by 
cracking the grain more or less fine, the 
coarser the better, in a common mill, and 
then sifting and winnowing out the meal and 
hulls. We rather prefer this sort, and on 
account of a dollar going so much further in 
a family when expended for hominy, instead 
of potatoes at one or two dollars a bushel, this 



86 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

excellent dish ought to be more generally 
known." 

'' How is it prepared ? I like the taste, and 
your reasons for its use so well, that I am 
anxious to learn the art of cooking it properly. 
I am sure that which I have seen heretofore, 
has not been prepared like this." 

" Put it in soak over night in tepid water. 
Boil it gently in a porcelain or tinned kettle, 
at least two hours in the same water, adding 
more if necessary, and taking care not to let 
it scorch, and that %11 the water is absorbed 
when taken off. Keep it in the same vessel, 
warming it over from time to time, until con- 
sumed." 

'' Do you add salt or butter ?" 

"Never while cooking. Boil it in soft, 
clear water only. At the table, you may 
eat it with salt and butter, or sugar, or 
in milk, or mix it with your meat gravy. 
It is a good substitute for rice in a pudding. 
It is excellent fried in a little bacon fat, like 
mush, to a nice brown. We will try that 
some morning." 

" I am sure this is a secret worth knowing. 



SECRETS WORTH KNOWmG. 87 

I have often thought how much is wasted in 
some houses, and how little is known in all, 
of the economy of purchasing and preparing 
food. I have read somewhere, that one half 
of the American people wasted enough to feed 
the other half; and that the greatest kitchen 
curse, was a frying pan ; but I never imder- 
stood why." 

"It is because that meat cooked in that way, 
is about the worst cooked of any way it can be 
both for health and economy. I don't know 
of but one thing worse than the smell of burnt 
grease in the frying pan, and that is that it 
should be taken into the stomach for digestion. 
The usual practice in frying meat or anything 
else, is to put only enough fat in the pan to 
burn and blacken, and scorch the meat, or fish, 
often giving it a bitter taste. If any article is 
to be fried, fat enough to float it should be 
used, and that heated as hot as possible without 
scorching, and then plunge the meat, fish, 
chicken, dough, potatoes, apples, &c., all over 
in the hot fat at once. Fish cannot be fried 
fit to eat, in any other way. Meat and 
chicken can always be better cooked in some 



8 8 ECONOMY ILLIJSTR ATED. 

other way, besides frying. Fried potatoes and 
fried apples, if properly done, are very good 
food. Fried cakes, or dough-nuts, are a great 
Yankee dish, but are often badly cooked. They 
are fried in too little lard, and soaked with 
burnt grease, forming a most unhealthy com- 
pound. I shall endeavor to tell you by and 
by several methods of cooking meats, both 
economical and healthy. For instance, a stew 
that we often have and which is eaten with a 
good relish, is made of a pound of beef, that 
fried or broiled, would have looked like a very 
diminutive breakfast for half a dozen persons. 
Now, with the addition of two or three pota- 
toes, and the gravy of our last roast, thickened 
with crumbs of stale bread, it makes an ample 
breakfast for us all." 

" Yes mother,'- said Frank, '^ and the gravy 
on the hominy is most delicious. Besides, the 
meat is a great deal more tender than it would 
be fried." 

"You are taking lessons all round," said 
Mr. Savery to Salinda, laughing heartily. 

"And for which I am truly thankful. I 
shall endeavor to profit by all I hear and see. 



WORK FOR THE DAY. 89 

Are you going now sir? I hope 1 have not 
detained von." 

'' ISTot long. We generally take onr time to 
eat all our meals. I consider it about the 
worst waste of time to eat in a hurry. Susan, 
will you give me my dinner pail. I shall see 
you again at six. Good bye." 

Lillie was not to be cheated of what she had 
always been accustomed to, because a stranger 
was present, and she ran after him into the 
entry, and a slight sound followed, such as has 
often betrayed a kiss in the dark. 

'^ISTow Salinda," said Mrs. Savery, "how 
have you apportioned your time for the day? 
for there is as much in economy of expendi- 
ture of time, as in the expenditure of money. 
Frank, what are you going to do ?" 

'' I shall work an hour in the garden, before 
school, and then I shall ' wash my face and 
comb my hair,' and — you know the rest ;" and 
away he ran to his work, whistling a merry 
catch to the mocking-bird that hung from his 
mother's window, which the bird at once took 
up and repeated, and so they echoed each 
other. 



90 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

Salinda replied to the question addressed to 
lier, that she had taken the matter into consid- 
eration, and asked Mrs. Savery for Lillie's 
company half an hour to go out and buy the 
stuff for the gauze curtain for the books ; the 
calico curtain for the dresses, and the stuff for 
the lounge. 

'^ And while you are out, you may buy some 
stuff for a mosquito net, which you will want 
by and by, and may as well have on hand. I 
offered to get it, but your mother would not 
listen to it. She said, ' I want Salinda to begin 
to provide everything for herself It is all 
very well. You may get your hat on at once, 
Lillie, as instead of half an hour, it will take 
a full one, and by that time you will have to 
get ready for school." 

" And when I return," said Salinda, "I shall 
work till about eleven o'clock, and then I have 
an engagement with Susan in the kitchen." 

" I wonder what is on hand ?" said Lillie. 

'' ISTothing unusual ; I am only going to take 
my first lesson in bread-making, and learn how 
to do that very difficult piece of cooking, boil 
a potatoe." 



MOSQUITO NETS. 91 

" In buying yonr mosquito net," said Mrs. 
Savery, as they were going out, ^* recollect that 
of all colors, green is the best for the eye to 
rest upon as it wakes in the morning, and red 
or pink the worst. A light blue is very good, 
and a rather more durable color. White soils 
too easily. For the curtain, a drab ground, 
with a small sprig or vine would be pretty. 
I always select calicoes or carpets, with figures 
that have some meaning — something that re- 
presents something in nature. Everything of 
that kind ought to be made useful rather than 
fanciful. For instance, a carpet might be 
made a complete study of tropical plants, in 
natural colours, the names and uses of which 
could readily be learned by children." 

Thank you, for these useful hints, particu- 
larly as to colors, not only now but for the 
future." 

"Lillie," said Salinda as they were going 
down the street, " what color is your mosquito 
bar?" 

" It was a light blue, but I believe it is 
among the things that were. I suppose mo- 
ther will get a new one, as she says it is bet- 



92 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

ter to pay the expense of a net, than to be tor- 
mented a single night with one mosquito. 
And then, in case of a little indisposition, they 
are so good to keep off the flies. My father 
says it would be good economy for any farmer 
to pay for mosquito nets to enable his hired 
men to sleep well; they would do so much 
more work." 

Salinda had obtained the information she 
wanted. She merely wanted to know that 
Lillie's bed was unprovided, so that she might 
buy two nets just alike, as well as two cur- 
tains to shield the dresses ; for she already 
felt that she could not do enough to pay for 
all the useful information she was daily obtain- 
ing from every member of this family. 

She said nothing of her intentions, but 
managed to give them all a pleasant little sur- 
prise one day, to find a net up at each bed 
exactly alike. 

She chose for the curtain, a piece of calico, 
wdth a drab ground — like gi'ound color, she 
said — w^ith a delicate sprig of the hop in full 
bearing. '-The very sight," said she, ''may 
have a sort of magnetic influence, and induce 
sleep, as well as a hop pillow." 



FIRST LESSON IN THE KITCHEN. 93 

It was a sensible idea, for the mind certainly 
has a powerful influence upon the body. 

It would have been no hard matter to read 
what was passing in the mind of Susan, when 
Salinda came down to the kitchen ; for it was 
printed upon her face. 

"Now," she thought, "I shall have an 
opportunity to pay a part of the debt of grati- 
tude I owe this sweet girl's mother. But for 
her, I might have been a beggar, thief, or at 
best a rag picker in the street; for I was a 
helpless orphan, without a hand to guide, or 
tongue to give me a kind word. She took 
me from the street to a school room, and taught, 
and fed, and clothed me ; and when she saw 
that I was not all viciousness, she took me 
home. Oh ! how many poor children might 
be saved in the same way. But it always 
appeared to me that such children in the 
streets of a city, only held an equal rank and 
value with the rats. Both are looked upon as 
vermin that are eating into the big cheese of 
society, and still those whose substance they 
devour, only seek to punish them for having 
an appetite, instead of training that appetite 



94 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

to relisli other than stolen food. Talk of eco- 
nomy! The worst economy on earth is this 
waste of hnman beings. Worse than waste, 
for these poor children are not only permitted 
but compelled to grow np as worthless as rats, 
to prey npon all that come within their reach 
when their teeth are grown. 

"Is human labor so worthless that it should 
thus be wasted? What if every woman who 
has the means should do as Mrs. Lovewell did 
by me, where should we find any vagabond 
children in the next generation?" 

It is curious to observe what magnetic power 
there is in a smile — one that comes from the 
heart. Salinda was won by the kind look and 
words of Susan, to feel that she was not looked 
upon as an intruder in the kitchen, and that 
she might ask questions that would tire the 
patience of one less willing than her present 
instructor, and still receive pleasant an- 
swers. 

"I have come," said Salinda, "to see you 
make bread, and I suppose I shall ask what 
will seem to you a great many foolish ques- 
tions." 



LEAKNING- TO MAKE BREAD. 95 

" Wliicli I shall answer strictly according to 
Scripture." 

""Wliat? answer a fool according to his 
folly." 

^"Yes, but God never intended that those 
answers should be such as would make him 
more foolish. No ; if you, compared to me, 
are not wise in bread-making, it will give me 
as great pleasure to teach you as ever it did 
your mother to teach me. 

"This is what we call a sponge. I set it 
this morning, and you see it is now ready to 
knead into loaves. This is by far the most 
important part of breadmaking." 

''Please tell me about setting the sponge, 
as you call it." 

" Oh, yes ! Well, I use about ten quarts 
of flour, which I put into this large wooden 
tray, and make a hole in the centre and pour 
in about half a pint of brewer's yeast, mixed 
with a pint of water, milk warm. As I pour 
it in gradually, I stir some of the flour in with 
it, till it forms a batter. Then I take a hand- 
ful of dry flour and sprinkle over the top. 
Then 1 spread over this a thick tow cloth, 



96 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

which I call my sponge cloth, and never use 
it for anything else but covering the bread 
tray. Now I set my sponge by the fire, or in 
the sun, and go about my work till it is ready 
to knead." 

'' How do you know when it is ready ?" 
'' I frequently look at it, and when it seems 
to be working, that is, sponging up, so as to 
crack the covering of flour, it is then ready to 
form into dough." 

" That is what you are going to do now." 
'' Yes ; and therein lies the secret of good 
bread. ISTot one in ten ever kneads the dough 
enough. It is hard work, and requires strong 
hands, and can only be done by hand. I 
begin thus ; by pouring in warm water with 
one hand and mixing it with the other. It 
will take about two quarts, so that altogether 
I shall use of yeast and water, about half as 
many pounds as I have flour. Clear soft water 
is the best. I use cistern water, filtered. 
Milk-warm or blood-warm is about right. I 
add a table-spoonful of fine salt. This I scat- 
ter over the sponge before I begin to knead. 
Mixing flour and water together will make 



KNEADING DOFGH. 97 

dough, but if you want good bread, you must 
take both hands in this way, and work the 
mass into a stiff, tough dough. 

'^Tliere, now, you see how it adheres together, 
so that I could draw it out in strands and braid 
a rope. Now I form it into a compact ball, 
and cover it up, and set it here in this warm 
spot of sunshine that is pouring through the 
window upon the kitchen table. I shall let it 
stand there about an hour, and then take a 
knife and cut it evenly into four parts, each 
of which I shall take separately upon my pie 
board, and form it into a loaf to suit one of 
these pans. By timing my work in this way, 
I cook my dinner, and bake my bread by one 
heat in the stove." 

"What is that for?" said Salinda, as she 
saw her cut off a lump of dough as large as 
her fist and lay it aside. 

" That is to leaven another baking. Do you 
see those pieces of stale bread which I am 
soaking in milk. I never waste a morsel of 
bread. Either in pudding, gravy, or in rusk, 
I use up all. These pieces I soak till so soft that 
I can add a little flour and knead the whole 
5 



98 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

together. I also add a little sliortening. This 
lump of dough I shall knead into the mass, 
and that will make the whole light. Then I 
mould it out like biscuit, and bake them after 
the bread is done, and have them warm for 
tea. Oh, I forgot the sweetening. I always 
sweeten rusk." 

" How often do you bake bread ?" 
" Twice a week ; but if I had a large brick 
oven I would only bake once a week ; because 
stale bread, or more properly speaking, ripe 
bread, is for the most, healthy and economical, 
and as I never waste any old bread, it is no 
matter how much I have on hand." 

"Do you ever mix potatoes with your flour?" 
" I used to when potatoes were cheap. At 
a dollar or more a bushel, it is not good eco- 
nomy. I often add a little corn meal, but I 
always cook it partly first, in a thin musli. 
If added raw to the flour, it will not cook 
enough in the baking process. For a change, 
I make bread with an addition of a little 
sugar, or butter, or sweet lard. I forgot to 
say I always add butter to my rusk. Some- 
times I divide my dough, and sweeten one loaf 



KEEPESra BEES IN TOVv:N^. 99 

for the children. They are fond of it, and it 
is much more healthy than rich cake. When 
the writer of that text which says 'bread is 
the staff of life/ wrote it, he certainly referred 
to good bread; not such miserable bread as 
we find in inost houses. If yon have good 
bread, you never will be at any loss to set a very 
good meal, upon emergency, without meat. 
You may have fresh bread and butter, dry 
toast and butter, soft toast with water or milk, 
bread and milk, or, and what can be nicer, some 
bread and butter and honey." 

" Speaking of honey, I am quite surprised 
to find that Mr. Savery keeps bees, here in 
town. I thought they must always be kept in 
the country." 

" That is quite a mistake. Here is our gar- 
den and half a dozen others right around here, 
and a good many trees, and then it is only 
half a mile out into the orchards and fields. 
We have half a dozen hives now, all from one 
that cost six dollars, I believe, in the first place, 
and they have cost nothing since, except a lit- 
tle feeding, to save honey, and for two years we 
have had honey plenty in the house, and have 



100 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

given a good deal to friends, and sold fifty 
dollars' worth. 

'^Mrs. Savery says it is wortli while to keep 
bees, just to learn children the value of indus- 
try, and how property can be accumuhxted 
little by little, and how we may all learn the 
value of improving our time while in health, 
to lay up a store for the winter of old age. 
The economy of space, too, as exhibited in the 
formation of their cells, and the discipline of the 
family to the government of one head, are all 
worth studying. Would you like to go and see 
them at work, you will just have time before 
dinner. I am going to set the table now." 

" Oh, I am afraid to go near them, they 
sting so." 

" Only their enemies or persons they don't 
like. Ours are domesticated. You may go 
and sit down by the hour, near the hive, and 
they will not touch you. Frank often goes 
out to play with them. They seem to know 
him." 

" Pray let me set the table, and I will go 
afterwards and walk in the garden and look at 
the bees, and Frank's hen's nests. 



BOUILLI. 101 

" Now, don't tell me a tiling, and I will see 
if I cannot arrange the whole quite to your 
satisfaction." 

''Let me assure you," said Mrs. Savery, 
when told by Susan how she had been learn- 
ing to make bread, and set the table, ''let me 
assure you, Salinda, that while you go to work 
with such a cheerful disposition and such an 
earnest desire to learn these little arts of 
housekeeping, you will never find the least 
difficulty. It is the first great step to go at 
everything with a cheerful heart, and determi- 
nation to do right, towards making everything 
right. Ah, there come the children, punctual 
as the clock; now, Susan, we will have our 
little plain dinner. What have you got? 
Oh ! a nice piece of fresh beef, not exactly 
like the French bouilli, but after a way of our 
own. It is a piece of the rump, from 7 to 10 
pounds, which was boiled in soup yesterday, 
of which we made our dinner without cutting 
the meat. It was slightly flavored with onion, 
parsley and thyme. Susan always adds a dry 
pepper pod, one of our own raising, and just 



102 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

salt enougli to flavor it, and while it is warm 
she sticks in these cloves. Ton will find it 
tender and good. 

" We are all fond of it cold^ bnt if it shonld 
be preferred hot, lay it in a dish and clap it in 
the oven a few minutes. In the season of 
them, we always add tomatoes. Now we 
substitute tomato catsup. This asparagus you 
will find fresh and tender. It is a healthy 
vegetable at this season. How will you eat 
your lettuce. "With sugar, as Frank is fixing 
his?" 

" 1 never tasted it that way. When I have 
been at school, the old housekeeper was always 
scolding about our using so much sugar, and 
I don't know what she would have said, if any 
one had used it upon lettuce." 

" She knew nothing of economy. I should 
have allowed you to sweeten your water, 
bread, milk, vegetables and meat if you liked 
it ; so you did not eat raw sugar, you might 
have all you wished, that is, in place of the 
same cost of other food." 

"I declare the lettuce is much better this 



GREENS. 103 

way than as it is usually fixed at the hotel, 
with mustard, oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, cat- 
sup, etc., and I dare say, more healthy." 

'^If you like vinegar, you will find the 
sweet and sour very pleasant mixed together. 
How do you like the beef?" 

"It is excellent, and so is the asparagus; 
and these greens, what are they ?" 

"It is a compound, I think. Frank knows 
best, he gathered them. How is it, Frank ?" 

" Two dandelions ; three turnip tops ; a few 
sprigs of spinage, a little pig-weed, or lamb's 
quarter, and the balance cabbage sprouts. 
All good, and as I could not get a mess of 
either, I thought I would go in for an assort- 
ment. This part is hen fruit," said he, laugh- 
ing, and pointing to the halves of hard-boiled 
eggs that Susan had added to the dish of 
greens. "Shall I help you to a little 
more ?" 

" If you please. I am fond of such food, 
and believe it is healthy, and I suppose, Frank, 
not very expensive." 

" I can tell you in the fall, or rather sister 
Lillie can ; for she sets down every day debt 



104 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

and credit to the garden. I wonder how 
much she will credit my two dandelions." 

" I don't know, Frank ; how^ much do you 
think they were worth?" 

'^"Well, they were good big ones, but I 
guess on the whole, you may set down the 
whole mess of greens at two cents." 

''That is a veiy fair estimate, my son ; and I 
am glad to see you inclined to be just, even in 
your dealings with the garden. You will find 
it saves a great many cents in the course of 
the year." 

" Yes, ma'am ; I am going to charge you 
eight cents for the asparagus, two cents for the 
lettuce, and one cent for the radishes I shall 
give you for tea." 

'' There is thirteen cents to-day ; and cer- 
tainly you give us things at very low rates, 



and much more fresh than tliose we get in 
market. Your hen-house, too, Frank, has been 
very profitable to us the past year." 

" And that reminds me that I must go and 
give the biddies some water, and cut a little 
grass for them, before I go to school." 

" Oh, let me do that," said Salinda, " I am 



TO-MOEEOW. 105 

going out with Susan, after dinner, to loot at 
them." 

" Will you ? well, I thank you ; I will do as 
much for you, or somebody else, it is all the 
same, so that we help one another, and try to 
do all the good we can in the world, so my 
mother says, and I never knew her to say 
anything wrong." 

'' And I hope I never shall know my son to 
say or do anything wrong." 

"I hope not, mother; and therefore, if sis- 
ter Lillie is ready, we will hurry off to school ; 
and to-morrow — ' "Well, well,' as our minister 
says, ^ye know not what a day may bring 
forth,' — but to-morrow is Saturday." 

'' What do you expect to-morrow will bring 
forth for you, Frank, a play-day ?" 

" Not exactly, though I think I shall make 
it one of amusement. In the first place, let 
me see — -well, in the first place, I shall get up 
and take a wash. Then I shall go down and 
help father in the garden till breakfast-time. 
Then I shall wash again. Cold water don't 
hurt me any. At breakfast I expect to eat 
two fresh eggs. Give the biddies credit for a 



106 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

dozen, Lillie; that is fifteen cents. After 
breakfast, I shall cut my grass for the first 
time. Can't tell how much that will be till 
old Cap'en Peabodj comes with his wheelbar- 
row, to take it home. It will bring us milk, 
though, for oar Sunday pudding. Then I am 
going to clean out my hen-house, and put 
every scrap of dirt in the cistern, where father 
mixes all sorts of stuff which makes our 
melons, and lima beans, and tomatoes, and 
celery, and other rank feeders upon manure, 
as father calls them; and after that I am 
going over to the new house where father is 
at work, to nail five pieces of waste boards 
together into a box, for a nest for my old blue 
hen, for she told me yesterday that she should 
want to commence setting about Sunday. 
After that, I have nothing particular on hand, 
and shall be at the service of my mother, or 
either of these my sisters, for a walk, or ride, 
or to work, or read, or play. Now, are you 
ready, Lillie? Good-bye, mother, good-bye, 
sister," kissing his hand to Salinda, and run- 
ning off in a glee of laughter. 

^' Thank you, brother Frank. Eemember, 



DEVELOPINa FACULTIES OF CHILDREN. 107 

then, to-morrow afternoon, you are at the ser- 
vice of the ] adies. Good-bye. What a remark- 
able boy," said Salinda, to his mother, "for 
one of his yeai^. I do not understand why 
one child should be so manly, or womanly, 
and another so childish." 

"It is because they are kept so childishly 
by their parents. The mind, the natural facul- 
ties have no chance to develop their power. 
Infants have the organs of voice, but do not 
use them because the reasoning faculties have 
not yet taught them the meaning of words. 
As soon as that faculty is developed, children 
become great talkers, mere chatterers, many 
of them. Those who hear correct language, 
acquire and use it. Without giving a child 
ideas, how is it to express them? Without giv- 
ing a child to understand what its ears, eyes, 
and hands are for, how is that child to exercise 
anything but the natural faculties of a child. 

" To improve a child's organ of language, you 
must converse with that child, not in namby 
pamby baby talk, but as though you were con- 
versing with a man or woman. If my children 
talk manly, it is because they never hear any 



108 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

other language from their parents. Frank may 
seem a little forward, sometimes, but itis because 
he has a natural vein of liumor, and vivacity 
of disposition. My children are not petulant, 
because they never see anything of the kind at 
home, and the little they see abroad, only serves 
to make them love home quiet all the better." 

" But you do not think that all children are 
born alike?" 

"Oh, no, by no means. Some of the per- 
ceptive faculties are much stronger than others 
in different individuals. I have heard of a 
person so deficient in the organ of color, that 
he could not tell green from blue, or yellow 
from white. You seem surprised, yet reflect 
a moment. By candle light, you cannot do it 
yourself To such a person, in daylight, the 
same inability to distinguish the difference in 
shades continues. Now it is hardly possible, 
if those having charge of that person in child- 
hood, had taken constant pains to develop this 
organ, that it would not have been improved. 
Many children have the organ of Causality 
constantly blunted, and the intellect made 
dull, by that universal check— 'don't ask so 



TALKING WITH CHILDREN. 109 

many foolish questions^'' — put upon their in- 
quiring minds. Is it foolish for a child to 
inquire the cause of, what is to him, a pheno- 
menon? I remember when a child, I went 
with my father, who was one of those men 
who never could bear to hear a child ask ques- 
tions, to see a fountain play. The beautiful jets 
of water spouted into the air, sixty feet, and 
fell in silver and diamond sparkling drops, all 
around. My first inquiry was, "who makes it 
play?' I was answered quite short, 'nobody, 
you silly child.' 'Then,' said I, earnestly, 
^what makes it play?' I was not kindly 
answered with a short description of the laws 
that govern water, but told not to ask so many 
foolish * questions. Do you know what I 
thought then? If I ever grow to be a woman, 
I never will tell a child not to ask so many 
foolish questions. Acting upon that impres- 
sion, so graven upon my heart,as it was burn- 
ing with desire to know the cause of that 
water spouting into the air, I have ever en- 
couraged my children to ask questions. I 
have told them there is a cause for everything. 
Study to find out that cause, l^erer say I 



110 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

don't know, I never thouglit about that. I 
teach them to think. I make companions of 
them. I ask questions for them to answer. 
For instance: one day I saw Frank bringing 
some old lime into the hen yard, and I asked 
him what that was for. 'Because,' said he, 
Hhe shells of eggs are principally composed 
of lime.' ' Who told you so V ' No one ; I 
read it in a book, and I said to myself, then 
hens must eat lime ; how else could the shells 
be formed. I did just what you have always 
told me, mother. I argued from effect to 
cause.' This was but a trifle in itself, but it 
taught me what was the effect of early train- 
ing upon a young mind. We have always 
tried to impress upon him the good effect of 
manly actions. We have developed his natu- 
ral faculties, without crowding his education 
in school. I have been encouraged in this 
course by an elder brother, the uncle Ephraim 
you hear Lillie talk about. He was here some 
years ago, and before he started home, he 
wrote for his son Charles to meet him in Chi- 
cago, on a certain day, with his carriage and 
horses. ' Why, Ephraim,' said I, ' how old is 



EAELY TRAINING. Ill 

Charley?' 'Well, let me see,' said he, Hhis 
is September, and he was eight in March.' 
' And do you expect him to drive forty miles 
alone, and then, what if he should not meet 
you. Something might detain you.' He 
replied, ' The road is plain, he knows the way, 
and he will go to the hotel. Mr. Brown knows 
him, for he has been there with me. And if 
he didn't, the boy has a tongue, and can tell 
him who he is, and what he is after. He will 
do well enough, depend upon it, sister. That 
is the way I train my boys.' The result 
proved his theory correct. Charley went in, 
and drove to the hotel, ordered his horses put 
up, and saw that they were well taken care 
of, too, and he took good care of himself. 
My brother did not arrive for three days ; the 
boat he went around the lakes on, having got 
aground, and met with several detentions." 

" I should have thought Charley would have 
been alarmed at his father's absence, or got 
tired of waiting." 

" Not he. He knew that his father would 
come when the boat did, and in the meantime 
he improved every minute. He studied the 



112 ECONOMY ILLTJSTEATED. 

science of ship-building, found out liow the 
workmen bent those great planks by the aid 
of steam ; looked into the steam-engine shops, 
and found somebody that was willing to answer 
his questions, and teach him how the power 
was obtained and controlled. Then he looked 
into the founderies, and saw how cast-iron was 
formed, how machines were made, by boring, 
drilling, filing, polishing, and fitting the various 
parts together, and, in short, my brother wrote 
me 'it was the best three days' schooling the 
boy ever had. I was not at all sorry, after I 
had learned the result, that I was detained. 
In fact, I did not fret any, at the time ; I knew 
it was all for the best, as every such thing 
always is, though we are not always able to 
see it.' 

"This also taught me a lesson. It taught 
me that children have a*natural desire to learn, 
and that they cannot learn unless they have a 
teacher. It taught me that the faculties of a 
child may be developed much younger than 
is generally supposed. We have infant schools, 
and all sorts of ' institutions,' to force the facul- 
ties applicable to the ordinary branches of 



MIJ^D-CULTURE. 113 

school studies, which are pushed like plants in 
a hot-bed, or forcing-house, to the neglect of 
all the qualifications that make a man or 
- woman of intellect. 

^' There, now, I think I have given you a 
sufficiently long lecture upon the science of 
mind culture." 

''I think I could listen to just such a one, 
with profit and pleasure, every day, and I hope 
I shall." 

"There is no telling what the next may be 
about. I never premeditate upon my subject. 
Whatever occurs at the moment, that I think 
I can explain, or make use of to teach those who 
are dependent on me for information, I seize 
upon as the basis of my lecture, if that is a 
proper term for those little conversations. 
You were going to the garden — I have a little 
work to do. I saw a moth-miller last night, 
and that is a warning for me to secure my furs 
and woolens. It costs so little time or money 
to pack them down in a trunk or box, with a 
little camphor gum, tobacco, snufi", cedar 
shavings, sassaff*ras, or almost anything that 
gives a strong odor, except musk." 



114 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

"And why not that?" 

"I cannot say. I only know that mnskrat 
furs are just as likely to be destroyed as any 
other." 

Mrs. Savery went about her work of saving ; 
for that is the true economy of housekeeping, 
saving everything — money, time, and that 
which cost both — gathering up little fragments 
— doing what most women call trifles ; but, 
though it may se^m trifling to them, it is no 
trifle to their husbands, in the footing np of 
the year's accounts. 

Salinda went to fulflll her promise to Frank, 
to water and feed his hens. Susan went with 
her, and that she might not feel as though she 
was losing any time, Salinda was to help her 
wash the dishes. " But," says she, " had we 
not better do that tirst?" 

" No, because Frank is very regular in his 
practice of feeding and watering his hens in 
the middle of the day ; and habit with them is 
as strong as with us. They are looking for it." 

Salinda found the same economy of space 
here as elsewhere. A strip five feet wide 
across ihe end of the lot was occupied by tlie 



THE HEN-HOrSE. 115 

poultry yard, poultry house, tool liouse, and 
the temple of Cloacina. 

The latter bore a most striking contrast to 
most of these necessary appendages to every 
house. A barrel of plaster of Paris stood in 
one corner, with a little tin dipper, and it was 
the invariable rule of every occupant of the 
place, to scatter into the vault a little of the 
plaster, which absorbed all the ammonia, 
keeping the place sweet, and rendering the 
monthly task of emptying the contents into 
the compost bed, neither unpleasant nor unpro- 
fitable. That compost bed was a tight vat, 
occupying the room under the hen-house, and 
in summer received all the fertilizing liquids 
from the house, as well as every other scrap 
of waste, which not only kept the garden 
rich, but afforded a surplus which was readily 
purchased and pumped out every week, by a 
market gardener in the neighborhood. In 
the corner appropriated as a hen yard, stood a 
large plum tree, that never failed to bear a 
full crop, because the hens prevented the 
ravages of the curculio. Starting near the 
compost tank, from which the roots drew sus- 



116 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

tenance, were two grape vines ; a Catawba 
and an Isabella, which were trained each way 
along the building and fence for a hundred 
feet ; these afforded all the grapes, and many 
more than the family wanted, and, as Mr. 
Savery said, cost no room of earth or air. 

Over the hen-house was the aviary ; and on 
top of the little room used to store the tools, 
the lime, plaster, empty beehives, &c. &c., 
grew the famous w^ater- melons. The whole 
of these buildings were screened from full 
view of the house by a row of quince, currant, 
gooseberry, and rose-bushes. Then came the 
strawberry bed, with the vines shooting through 
the covering of tan bark, which not only serves 
as the best manure, but keeps the fruit clean. 
All the vegetables and bushes seemed to be 
arranged so as to economize room, and make a 
little spot of ground produce a great deal of 
food. Next to the house w^as the grass-plat, 
and in the centre of that stood a half barrel 
tub, filled with earth, and planted with cucum- 
bers. Half the vines will climb a bush, and 
the other half fall down upon the grass, but 
are not allowed to run far. 



MOEE OF THE YAED AND GARDEN. 117 

Salinda could not help thinking how much 
land in and around all cities is wasted — left 
barren and worthless, that might be made to 
bear rich j)roducts of human food, like this 
little plat. She noticed that even the earth in 
the cucumber tub was not allowed to remain 
idle while waiting for the proper time to re- 
ceive the seed, and while they were vegetating, 
but it was made to produce a crop of early 
radishes. She did not know, but Mr. Savery 
did, that this productiveness was owing to his 
liquid manure, and other frequent waterings 
w^iich he gave the whole ground, with a cheap 
hand force-pump and hose, with a rose nozzle, 
which Frank guided while his father worked 
the pump. 

" 1 should really like to know where your 
cistern is. There is but one pump, and that is 
at the well." 

"And yet it draws well or cistern water at 
your option. You have only to turn this cock 
this way, and that one this way, and now it 
wdll pump well water. Change them back 
again, and you draw water from the cistern, 
which is under the grass-plat. Last summer 



118 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

it got SO low after being cleaned out in the 
spring, tliat we had to nse ley from the ash 
leach, to make the well water soft enough to 
wash with. But after all, there is nothing like 
good filtered rain water for every purpose. It 
is great economy to build a cistern, and adds 
greatly to the comfort of those who have to do 
the housework. Speaking of the cistern re- 
minds me that I have got some dishes to 
wash." 

" And I am to help you — that is, I should 
like to learn what there is for me to learn in 
that branch of domestic economy, if you are 
willing, Susan." 

" Certainly. Well, here is one thing for you 
to learn. Never put ivory knife-handles into 
warm water. I use this double tin can. This 
for the knives, that for the forks." 

It was like two quart measures^ soldered to- 
gether. One had an extra bottom, that left 
the water just deep enough for the dinner 
knives, and the other for the forks, when filled 

* There are cans made on purpose with bars like a gridiron, so close 
that the handles cannot go through, while the blades remain in the 
water. Susan's was more primitive and less expensive. 



WASHING DISHES. 119 

near the top. For the tea knives it was not so 
full^ — the can being connected, made the v/ater 
always of the same relative height. '' If the 
handles get soiled so that I cannot wipe them 
clean," said Susan, " 1 use a piece of fine sand- 
paper." 

" Do yon use soap in your dish water ?" 

" Seldom. That stone pot is full of ley. If 
I have a very greasy dish, that hot water will 
not clean, I dip it in that ley, and thus make 
the grease into soap. It is a small matter, but 
it saves many a sixpence in a year. When 
the ley gets greasy, I empty it in a tub where 
I keep ley, to eat up all the grease and bones 
that would otherwise be wasted, or get mouldy 
or j9.y-blown, if kept long enough to boil up 
for soap. Sometimes it makes itself into ex- 
cellent soap, without one bit of trouble." 

" Now, shall I wipe the plates as you wash 
them?" 

" Not yet. I wash them in tliis pan, and 
set them in that to drain. Then I rinse them 
off with boiling water — so — now you may wipe 
them, while I wipe the knives. Now pour 
that water in this pan, and I will wash those 



120 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

larger dishes. It is not an unpleasant job, nor 
is it hard work to wash dishes, if rightly done ; 
and I have not broken anything for years." 

" What are yon boiling the teakettle for, 
Susan?" 

" For tea. It is so warm that I shall not 
want any fire in the range this afternoon — 
with what heat there is, that water will keep 
almost as hot as boiling till night. Then I 
take a handful of charcoal, and kindle it in 
this little portable furnace, and that saves a 
peck of coal; as the furnace will boil my 
water, and boil my tea, and make a bit of toast 
if I wish." 

"Do you boil tea?" 

" Black tea is very much improved by being 
boiled at least fifteen minutes. It changes 
the flavor entirely." 

" I never heard of that before. And is it 
more economical — that is, does it take less tea 
to serve the family ?" 

" At least twenty-five per cent. That you 
may be convinced of the difference in flavor, 
strength, economy, everything, I will divide 
my usual measure — I always make by a uni- 



MAKING TEA. 121 

form -measure — and give one-half made in the 
usual way of pouring boiling water on the 
leaves in the pot, and the other I will boil 
half an hour." 

The result will be known by listening to the 
following tea-table talk in the next chapter. 



122 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Something the matter with the Tea. What is it? The 
properties of Tea. The difiference proved. Lillie's Max- 
ims of Life. 

" What is the matter with your tea, Susan?" 
said Mr. Savery, at the first sip. " I am very 
fond of a good cup of black tea, and if not 
taken very warm, and only moderately strong, 
with sugar and milk, I think it not only plea- 
santly invigorating, but quite healthy. Liebig, 
I think it is, says that tea contains nutritious 
qualities. It is certainly strengthening and 
invigorating. It possesses stimulating and 
narcotic principles that do not agree with per- 
sons of hypochondriacal habits, or weak nerves. 
From 30 to 40 per cent, of tea is soluble in 
water. And a trifle larger proportion is solu- 
ble in alcohol. Tea contains considerable 
tannin ; a trace of volatile oil ; and the pecu- 
liar flavor is contained in a resinous substance. 
This is much easier dissolved in some varieties 
than others," 



WHAT IS IT 'i ll'3 

"And hence the necessity," said Mrs. Save- 
ry, "in making black tea that the infusion 
should stand and boil some minutes ; which I 
perceive Susan has somehow neglected to- 
night." 

" ITo, not neglected," said Salinda, " it has 
been purposely done, to teach me the differ- 
ence. Come in, Susan, with the other. You 
need not stand there laughing at my ignorance, 
or how easy you have convinced me of my 
error." 

" To remove old prejudices," said Susan, as 
she changed the tea-pot, "particularly any- 
thing relating to our accustomed food, requires 
strong evidence that the proposed innovation 
upon old customs is really an improvement. 
Mr. Savery, let me change your cup. And 
you, Salinda, will, as readily as he does, see the 
difference in flavor." 

"And economy, too," said Mrs. Savery. 
"You make that quite a yearly item. This 
we are indebted for to Uncle Ephraim ; and 1 
remember that we all thought it was one of 
his odd notions, but he took the same course 
to convince us that Susan has you, Salinda. 



124 eco:nomy illustkated. 

We are not aware ourselves, how wedded we 
are to liabit in our eating and drinking." 

" That is true, wife. Just look at the ridi- 
cule that has been heaped upon those who ad- 
vocate a vegetable diet. They have been 
called bran-bread philosophers — advocates of 
feeding workingmen upon sawdust; and a 
thousand other slanders ; when, in fact, all 
they recommend is that men should act ration- 
ally in adapting the proper food to the various 
conditions of men. They simply say, that it 
is not necessary for the health of women and 
children, and persons of sedentary habits, to 
eat the same fat pork diet of a hard-working 
farmer. We are, as you perceive, no vegeta- 
rians, yet we must allow that the advocates 
of that system have a great deal of reason and 
common sense in their arguments. It is a 
pretty well settled fact in philosophy, that the 
consumers of swine's flesh, generation after 
generation, will at length come to partake in 
some degree of the nature of the animal whose 
flesh they have fed upon. Many physicians 
are of opinion that pork is the cause of scrof- 
ula. We cannot dispute the fact, that none 



THE USE OF TOBACCO. 125 

but hard laborers, who are much in the open 
air, can consume large quantities of gross food, 
and maintain good health. But it is very hard 
to break people of long indulged in gross 
habits of any kind. There is not a rum-drink- 
er, rum-maker, or rumseller, in the world, that 
does not know the evil effects of taking alco- 
hol into the stomach ; yet one persists in the 
manufacture and sale, because it aflfords him 
an easy profit, and the other continues its use, 
because it produces exhilaration or stupefac- 
tion ; or else gives strength, or courage to do 
some act of desperation, of folly, or wicked- 
ness." 

" You are severe on gross eaters and hard 
drinkers, sir ; pray, what is your opinion of 
the use of tobacco ?" 

" That, waving all argument about its poison- 
ous elfects and unhealthiness, the use of it is 
so positively filthy, whether chewed, snufi^ed, 
or smoked, that no well-bred gentleman or 
lady can use it, or sanction its use, or what is 
still more, encourage friends to get accustomed 
to a practice that enslaves them through life. 
But come, let us adjourn to the sitting-room. 



126 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

and see what Lillie has to read to us — ^this is 
the end of her school week, when she furnishes 
us a composition, or some collation of facts 
gathered during the week. What have you 
to-night, my daughter ?" 

" At my mother's suggestion, I have made 
an excerpta of passages and sentiments from 
several authors upon the subject of domestic 
economy.' 

" That probably is intended for your benefit, 
Salinda." 

" Then I shall give my careful attention to 
its teachings. Will you read, Lillie. I hope 
your father and mother will give us running 
comments.'' 

" Catharine E. Beecher says : 

*' In regard to the subject of health, mothers and teachers 
— [she might have added children] — never had the facilities 
afforded for gaining the knowledge they needed. It is 
painful, after years of toil and anxiety, to discover, that in 
some important respects, mistakes have been made which 
have entailed suffering and sorrow on ourselves and the ob- 
jects of our care. 

" No American woman has any occasion for feeling that 
hers is an humble or insignificant lot. 

^* Persons in poverty to-day, may rise to afiauence to- 



CAUSES OF ILL HEALTH. 127 

morrow. Children of common laborers may rise to wealth 
and station, while their wealthy neighbors' children, through 
long enervating indulgence, sink down to the lowest station 
in life. 

" Were it not for the supply of poverty-stricken foreign- 
ers, there would be a dearth of domestics in every family.'' 

" That," said Mr. Savery, " is because we 
rear our own children to look upon all labor 
with contempt — that the garb of an honest 
workman is a disgrace. But go on." 

" There is nothing that so demands system and regularity 
as the affairs of a housekeeper, and the want of success, 
through ill health and inability to attend to the duties, are 
causes of great anxiety and perplexity. 

" Women in this country are unusually subject to disease, 
through delicacy of constitution. 

" Curvature of the spine is a prevalent complaint with 
the daughters of the rich.'' 

" Much of which is owing to their enervat- 
ing habits — lounging on sofas and cushioned 
chairs — never going out in the air, except in 
a cushioned carriage — never in fact taking any 
exercise that stirs the blood, except perhaps a 
health-destroying midnight dance ; and avoid- 
ing cold water as they would the plague. It 



128 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

is such a life that makes feeble, puny girls, 
and sickly mothers, who prematurely blossom, 
bear early, sickly fruit, wither and die. 'Tis 
a sad picture, but it is truly American." 

"Why, Mr. Savery, your chairs are all 
cushioned, even those in the dining-room, 
which is quite unusual." 

" Only cushioned in the seat. That is eco- 
nomy. It is not like a chair with a stuffed 
back, that shuts out all circulation of air from 
the body. These plain, hard seat cushions 
save much wear of clothing, and should be 
used at the table, of all other places, where 
all should sit at their ease. Go on, Lillie." 

" Medical men all tell us that this constitutional debility 
results from mismanagement in early life. 

*' Mental excitement, without exercise, tends to weaken 
the system." 

" Don't imagine," said Lillie, as she saw 
Salinda pick up Miss Beecher's Domestic Eco- 
nomy, " that I make literal quotations. I am 
rather sifting out facts, which I express, or try 
to, in short hand." 

" You are very successful, and I am deeply 
interested." 



PEEMATTJRE DECAY. 129 

" Americau women, from various causes, are exposed to 
a far greater amount of intellectual excitement than those 
of any other land, with far less walking, riding, gardening, 
or exposure to the open air, than falls to the lot of European 
women. 

" American girls go from school to visiting, dressing, 
evening parties, balls, or amusements, in close hot rooms ; 
morning calls and midday shopping, in ridiculously un- 
healthy modes of dress, and then eat gormandizing dinners, 
till they have to lay down exhausted, to read the last novel. 

" At fifteen they marry — at thirty they are faded, worn, 
haggard, and discontented with all the world, to think they 
have lost their beauty.'' 

" Is it any wonder," said Mr. Savery, " that 
such girls become mothers of puny children, 
or that such a large proportion of all the 
deaths that occur in cities are among those 
under ten years of age ! We listen, Lillie." 

" Many, in fact most, wealthy ladies would think a walk 
of a mile, three or four times a week, would be a killing 
amount of exercise. 

" Girls should never be sent to school till six years old, 
and then the physical rather than the intellectual cultiva- 
tion should be attended to. Children should frequently be 
sent out to play. The air in a school room should never be 
overheated, or suffered to get impure. Crowded rooms and 
salamander stoves, are the curse of American school-rooms. 

" A girl from six to ten years old should be taught to do 

6* 



130 ECONOlSrY ILLUSTRATED. 

many things about a house, so as to acquire active habits, 
and learn that labor in any household duty is not degrading. 

^•' Where there are several daughters in the house, they 
should go by turns to the kitchen, while all the light work 
should be done by the others. 

'' Every branch of domestic economy should be taught in 
all female seminaries. 

'• Healthful exercise gives rosy cheeks, rounded form and 
delicate skin. 

^' There is no period in life when a young lady will not 
find a knowledge of domestic economy useful to herself and 
others. The mere knowledge of how to remove a grease 
spot, may confer happiness for the moment upon herself and 
some friend. 

^' Every girl should be trained to have some knowledge 
of the laws of health, and how to take care of the sick." 

" She stLonld also know how to prevent, in 
a great measure, her children from getting 
sick, by indulgence in unwholesome food. 
However, I won't interrupt you," said Mrs. 
Savery. 

** Those persons who keep their bodies in a state of health 
by sufficient exercise, have a sure guide of what they should 
eat. 

" Many women are so inactive, they never feel hungry ; 
and only eat at stated times, through habit, or for pastime. 

** Hence the necessity of inducing appetite by tempting 
viands, and a variety of high seasoned dishes. By tasting 



GLUTTONY. 131 

of this and that, she loads her stomach with more than a 
hodman could well digest. 

" Health depends on quality as well as quantity of food. 
Some things are naturally pernicious, and some are made 
so by cooking and combination with others. 

" Condiments, such as pepper, spice, mustard, vinegar, 
salt, &c., are never needed in a healthy stomach. In case 
of stimulants being needed, such things may be used." 

" Don't you think," said Salinda, " tliat salt 
is necessary ?" 

" No more," said Mr. Savery, " than any of 
the other stimulants. If we eat less salt, we 
should drink less, and the world would be 
saved from the disgrace of drunkenness. We 
are so accustomed to the use of salt, that we 
never stop to inquire whether it is really use- 
ful or necessary, or beneficial or otherwise. 
But we won't stop to discuss this question now. 
It is enough for the present purpose that it 
shall induce you to think and inquire for your- 
self. We listen, Lillie." 

*' There are more gluttons than drunkards in America — 
that is, persons who injure themselves by eating.'^ 

"That is very true," said Mrs. Savery. 
" Only last month a young lady-friend of ours 



132 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

that had suffered for a long time with ill 
health, and loss of appetite, took a notion that 
she must have some hard clams, and in the 
course of the day she ate several dozen ; some 
raw and some cooked, as people generally 
cook them — that is, nothing but w^armed— not 
cooked at all — and in the evening she was 
taken with spasms, and came near losing her 
life. The stomach was paralyzed, as bad as 
though she had swallowed so many leaden 
bullets. Many a life is destroyed by impru- 
dence in eating. 

" I have a sentence that I have extracted 
from one of my books, just in point to your 
remark, mother. His is it : 

•' A perfectly heaUhy stomach can digest almost any 
healthful food : but when the digestive powers are weak, 
what is food for one, would be poison to another." 

" You know Yirginia had been suffering a 
long time with dyspepsia. Perhaps, too, she 
did not chew her food sufficiently, for my 
books tell me that 'it is indispensable that 
food be taken slowly and well chewed, or it 
will not digest. Eice, potatoes, when dry and 



PKOPER FOOD FOR EACH MEAL. 133 

well cooked, flour, Indian corn, tender meats, 
or meats minced fine, are easiest of digestion. 
Tough beef, fat bacon, unripe fruit, wilted 
vegetables, rancid butter, short pie-crust, hot 
short cakes, and many articles of mixed food, 
will in time destroy the powers of an ostrich- 
like stomach, in any human being that does 
not take violent exercise in the open air. 
After every meal, a person should rest a little 
while, to allow the gastric juice time to incor- 
porate itself with the contents of the stomach.' " 
" That is the very reason," said Mr. Savery, 
" why we practice sitting at the table in con- 
vei'sation after we have done eating. It is not 
time lost." 

" The food of our meals should be properly apportioned 
to the wants of the body. At breakfast we need drinks, 
and should eat fruit, and light vegetable food, with but little 
meat. That good old-fashioned dish of hash — a little meat 
and potatoes, with a flour gravy, is an excellent breakfast 
dish. But we do not eat fruit enough, and the eating of 
hearty meats, often too, cooked by frying, is a national sin 
of this country. 

" Dinner should be taken near the middle of the day, and 
may be a hearty one, if the proper amount of exercise has 
been had in the forenoon,, and labor is to be performed in 



134 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

the afternoon. After dinner, spend an hour in conversa- 
tion, reading, or liglit work, before you resume the regular 
employment of the day, and you will accomplish more be- 
fore night, with less exhaustion. 

^' Look for an example to the sons of toil in the harvest 
field. Their ' nooning ' is true economy. 

^' The true temperature for all kinds of food and drink, 
is blood warm. Sipping hot tea is dissipation. Drinking 
ice water, except in little sips, to act as a tonic, is folly. 
The health of many a stomach has been ruined by eating an 
excessive quantity of ice cream. One table-spoonful should 
be a full allowance. 

'' When the body is hot and exhausted, bathe the hands and 
feet and face in cold water, and drink something hot. A 
little sweetened water, gingered, is excellent. After re- 
storing the tone of the body to its natural condition, you 
may have a pleasant, healthful tonic, in a glass of ice water. 

" The temptation to use stimulating drinks, is their present 
agreeable stimulating effect. But with every indulgence, 
the power to produce that sensation diminishes, until at 
length the stomach becomes so accustomed to their use, it 
would take a whole Niagara of rum to produce the sensation 
caused by the first glass.'' 

" Why, Lillie," said Mrs. Saveiy, " are those 
extracts from books you have been reading?" 

"Not altogether. You and father have 
always told me to read books to get ideas.. I 
extract sentiments, and add reflections. What 



STIMULANTS AND CONDIMENTS. 186 

I read, sometimes serves as a text for a sermon 
I preacli to myself. Is there anything wrong 
in what I have read, or in giving the ideas of 
others in my own words ?" 

"Not exactly. I thought that expression 
about a Niagara of rimi, sounded a little ex- 
travagant ; and I understood you that you had 
been selecting passages from Miss Beecher's 
work, and I did not recollect anything like it. 
It sounds a good deal more like one of Henry 
"Ward Beecher's strong similes. Read on.'' 

*^ Those who use stimulating drinks, argue that the taste 
is a natural one, and caU savages and even animals for wit- 
nesses, and therefore claim that it is right to indulge the 
taste ; else, they say, why did God implant it in our nature. 
The murderer might just as well argue that to kill was no 
sin, because he has a natural propensity for blood. 

^' Stimulants were created for medicine, to cure diseases, 
not create them. There is not a doubt that coffee, and in 
some measure tea, taken in extravagant quantities as they 
are in this country, cause much of the nervous diseases that 
affect females, and all persons of natural delicate constitu- 
tions. 

^* Water is the only safe drink. Sugar and juice of fruits, 
slightly acid, may be safely added. We all drink too much. 
It is only a habit ; it is not necessary. Children in school 
should not be allowed the idle habit of continually running 



136 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

out for a drink. If they are dry, they should be told the 
cause of it, and a slight punishment of thirst for eating salt 
to excess, will not hurt them. It may teach them to eat 
less. Some persons are constantly eating cloves, cinnamon, 
mace, orange peel, or some other spicy thing, which only 
serves to create thirst. No condiment with food can possi- 
bly do any good. If it stimulates the appetite to eat more, 
that is not beneficial. A person will soon get so he cannot 
eat without some stimulant. 

** In this country the bulk of our food is of a stimulating 
nature. We consume a vast amount of meat. It is neither 
economical or healthy. Dyspepsia prevails here to a greater 
extent than in any other civilized country. Savages, owing 
to their nature and modes of life, and exposure of the whole 
body to the atmosphere, can eat meat, even whale blubber, 
with impunity. We must mix crude vegetables with our 
meat and fine flour. Of the latter we eat too much. If 
two-thirds of our wheat was eaten unbolted, we should 
enjoy better health. At one time the army bread of Eng- 
land was all made of unbolted wheat, and the soldiers never 
were so robust and healthy before or since. Those who use 
wheat grits, that is cracked wheat, are never constipated in 
the bowels. Oat meal is equally beneficial. It makes very 
pleasant, healthy bread. It is mostly eaten in gruel, or oat 
meal porridge. 

^' There is a great lack of economy in most families in 
clothing ; and it is not at all uncommon that health and 
life are sacrificed to Moloch by fond mothers, through the 
folly of pride to follow the fashion of dress. 

" The rule should be to cover the body, particularly of 



FOLLY m FOOD AND DRESS. 137 

children, so as to keep it just warm without inducing per- 
spiration. Children often throw off their night covering, 
because too warm, and then suffer from exposure. This 
may be guarded against by using night gowns, and never 
covering them too warm at iSrst. 

'^ One person requires more clothes than another, yet all 
dress nearly alike. Women need thicker clothing than 
men, as a general thing, yet they almost always dress much 
thinner. Unless they wear rubbers over their shoes, their 
feet are as unprotected from damp or cold, as though en- 
tirely bare. They go out bare-footed, bare-headed, bare- • 
necked, bare-armed, carrying a dragging weight of sweat 
cloths suspended from the hips. 

^* Such is woman's winter fashion. 

'• Men, not only in winter, but in broiling August, encase 
themselves in thick, solid patent-leather boots, impervious 
to air more than water, and black coat, vest and pantaloons, 
with a dozen folds of cloth around the neck, the whole 
topped off with a black hat, as stiff as a stove-pipe, imper- 
vious to air, and spoiled by the first dash of rain. 

" Such is the economy of fashion. 

" One of the most healthy practices is to wear flannel next 
the skin. It is a bad conductor of heat, and keeps the body 
warm. Black should never be worn in the sun in hot 
weather, because it conducts the heat to the body. 

" Whatever is worn next the skin should be often changed. 
Cleanliness promotes health. All dresses for men, or women, 
or children, should be worn loose. Clothing should always 
be adapted to the occupation of the wearer, and colors 
always plain and suited to age, sex or complexion. How 



138 EGONO]MY ILLUSTRATED. 

would the minister look with a yellow coat, or his wife with 
a red gown. 

" One of the domestic virtues of rural life is early rising. 
In cities there is a certain degree of snobbishness that af- 
fects late hours at everything. These persons are late at 
church, late at meals, late to bed, and very late in getting 
out of it. It is impossible for such a late family to be 
healthy, and if engaged in business they are rarely prosper- 
ous. Laying in bed till the sun is two or three hours high, 
is very poor economy. It is poor economy to sleep by day- 
light and work or read by lamplight. No living thing 
flourishes healthily in darkness or artificial light, except 
sleeping. 

" The fashion of dining after dark, and supping at mid- 
night, and going to bed in the morning, is one that demo- 
cratic Americans, who pretend to despise everything for- 
eign and aristocratic, should utterly repudiate. , 

" Without a good reason, it should be held as a mark of a 
want of respectability in any woman to be out of bed at 
midnight. 

^' The unheal thiness of the night air in malarious regions, 
is such that it cannot be breathed with impunity in the 
night time. This fact is so well understood in the neighbor- 
hood of Charleston, South Carolina, that night trains upon 
the railroad are avoided. I have known a whole car load 
of passengers all sick while coming over the fifty miles of 
miasmatic country north of that city, in summer, 

*• All persons require six to eight hours sleep, and there is 
no better time the year through to take that, than between 
nine in the evening and four or five in the morning. 



LATE HOUKS. 139 

" All long-lived people are habitual early risers. We 
can, if accustomed to it, perform more labor early in the 
morning, than at any other period. No mother, or mistress 
of a family, should ask her children or hired help to get up 
hours before she does herself. Let her own example be a 
good one. 

" There is no economy in late hours in bed. 

" The health of many a person — women in particular — has 
been ruined for want of judicious exercise. Half the cases 
of dyspepsia, crooked spine, and nervous debility, come 
from want of exercise. But exercise should always have an 
interest for the mind. Walking merely for the exercise of 
walking, is fatiguing in many cases, where, if the mind was 
exercised also, no fatigue would be felt. Take children out 
in the field to hunt flowers or fruit — never to hunt bird's 
nests — that is all wrong — and they rarely grow tired. An 
invalid, who is fatigued in going up and down stairs, will 
climb a mountain for the view of the beautiful landscape 
spread out before him. All females should accustom them- 
selves to take long walks — walks that have an object and 
interest for the mind. I knew one person restored to health 
who thought herself in a decline, just through an interest 
she took in a little girl, and by following her home to see 
her sick mother, became so interested that she walked a 
mile every day upon her mission of mercy and thus saved 
her own life. 

*' It was not only the exercise and fresh air, but the sooth- 
ing influence of doing an angelic act to one of her own sex, 
who was in deep distress. 

*' All well trained minds feel happy when thus employed. 



140 ECONOMY ILLrSTJRATED. 

" The fashions ot society which coudeiim young ghls to 
confiaement to books and a sedentary life, are destructive 
of beauty, grace, health and happiness. 

" One of the great defects in family education is the ill- 
breeding of children ; that is, a want of proper training of 
their manners towards superiors, and touching their conduct 
in all the little proprieties of life. 

" Be courteous, should be a daily maxim, impressed upon 
every child's mind. A child that is not courteous to a 
parent, is not one that meets with love from all. A child 
never should address a parent like an equal. Every one 
should behave at home and abroad exactly alike. If chil- 
dren are allowed to be rude at home, they will be so abroad. 
The natural disposition of children, is to assume airs of 
equality with those who are their seniors, and entitled to 
their respect and deference. If that disposition is not 
checked, they grow pert, overbearing, unamiable, ill-man- 
nered. Children should be taught gratitude. ' Thank you, 
ma'am,' costs nothing, but it often sounds as though it was 
worth something. 

^' Never make rude remarks of another, or laugh at a de- 
fect of speech, or person, or mock an unfortunate. 

^' Rudeness at table is never forgiven. Nothing is more 
disagreeable to a well bred person. Study to imitate such 
persons, and you may soon be like them. Their company is 
always appreciated and courted, while that of a rude person 
is dreaded and avoided. 

"A mild tempered, well bred child, no matter how homely 
the countenance, will always be loved and welcomed among 
adults or children, while one of rude manners will be ex- 
cliid "1 — perhaps bated. 



SCOLDING WIVES. 141 

" A good temper, particularly in a housekeeper, who has 
charge of a family, is one of the greatest blessings. It 
makes of itself an atmosphere of love, that glows and shines 
upon all the household. 

** There is no purgatory more irritating to a husband than 
a scolding wife, or more heart-burning to a wife than a fret- 
ful husband. In such a house, how can children grow up 
with happy, cheerful dispositions. They feel a dread, a sort 
of shock, at the very step of such a parent approaching. I 
have seen men who never were satisfied with a meal — some- 
thing was always wrong. I have seen women who appa- 
rently never spoke a good-natured word. Their words were 
like oil of vitriol — burning every ear they fell upon. Under 
their influence the husband grows discontented and unhap- 
py, and avoids home. The children grow up ungovernable, 
petulant, unamiable ; a dread to others, and misery to them- 
selves. At table, they eat more like pigs than well-behaved 
children, and if there are strangers in the house, the child- 
ren, and the thought how they may conduct themselves, are 
a source of constant anxiety and dread. They are under 
no control, because they are the victims of a scold.'' 

" Ah, Lillie," said Salinda, " I see yon have 
been getting acquainted with the family of 
Eoyden's, in Father Bright Hopes. In that 
case both father and mother were scolds ; it is 
therefore no wonder the children were uncon- 
trollable." 

'' And I see," said Mr. Savery, "that Lillie 



142 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

has had a very good assistant in making up 
her composition. I am quite interested. Have 
you any more, my daughter?" 

" Yes, sir ; but I was just going to ask you 
if I should go on. I am afraid I shall tire you 
all out, with my crudities." 

" I will answer for them, sister," said Frank ; 
" when they are tired they will begin to yawn . 
or go to sleep while you are reading. 

I am thinking, father, that mother had 
about as much to do with this composition as 
sister. I wish we could have it printed ; for 1 
think it would do good to a great many other 
families." 

" 1^0 doubt, my boy ; but let us listen what 
more she has for us, as it is not late yet." 

Lillie proceeded with cheerfulness, being 
thus encouraged. She even felt proud that a 
part of it was attributed to her mother, though 
she had never seen it — it was only her ideas, 
often instilled into a susceptible mind. She 
read on. 

" One of the best rules of household economy is order, 
system, regularity. Have fixed hours for meals, and if you 
hare servants, make them understand that every meal must 



HOW TO CURE WANT OF PUNCTUALITY. 143 

be as regularly on the table, as though the starting of a 
railroad train depended upon it. Otherwise you will have 
collisions all day. Make punctuality the household law\ If 
a child is not punctual at meal-time, fasting will soon cure 
the fault. Some girls in the kitchen are never punctual 
with meals. Don't scold. Tell them mildly what will be 
the consequence, at the first failure ; and the second, re- 
mind them that the offence cannot be repeated with impu- 
nity ; and give a prompt dismissal for the third failure. 

" A gentleman who had been the torment of his first wife 
in never coming to his meals when ready, married a second 
one who was made up of clock-work. She found remon- 
strance was useless ; but she ascertained that he was a very 
close calculator of dollars and cents, and she adopted this 
plan. She opened an account, and charged him with the 
time of every member of the family, every minute they w^ere 
delayed by his neglect. She also charged the deterioration 
of dishes and loss of food by standing till they got cold and 
sodden ; for she had everything put upon the table at the 
exact moment. 

" At the end of a month she laid the bill upon his plate 
one morning. The man was astounded. His face flashed 
fire, but his eye rested upon a smile on the face of his wife. 
* Don't you think,' said she, ^ that that is a sum worth sav- 
ing ?' ' Wife,' said he, ' if you will allow me a credit for 
every day I am punctual hereafter, equal to the daily charge 
here, I will try to balance this account.' One month from 
that day she gave him a receipt in full. •' In fact,' said she, 
« I think there is still a small balance in your favor. Here 
it is.' And she threw her arms around his neck and kissed 



144 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

him fondly. ' So much/ said he, ^ for learning me the value 
of punctuality.' 

" It is very bad economy to neglect the opportunity of 
leisure moments in every household, to cultivate the intel- 
lect. If possible, there should be an allotment of a portion 
of every day, where there are children, to make them know 
one thing more than they knew the day before. 

" The father as he comes from the field may pick up three 
stones, by which he can teach them the names and charac- 
ter of three kinds of rock. Here is the hard granite, called 
a primitive rock ; and here is still harder quartz ; and here 
is the limestone that was perhaps trickling as a liquid over 
the others, centuries after they were formed. 

'* The mother as she picks the cowslip — the tender dock 
— the young shoots of cokeberry plant — the pig-weed or 
lamb's quarter — the purslain — the star plant — for greens, in 
the spring season, could give her children useful lessons in 
botany. So of every flower and fruit through summer ; 
teach them their formation, properties and use. 

"Almost every country housekeeper knows that the bark 
of the common elder is medicinal ; but there are two who 
believe it must be scraped up or down, I forget which, or it 
loses all its virtue, to one that knows why, or what healing 
power it possesses. Stew the bark in lard, no matter 
which way it was scraped, and it will make a healing oint- 
ment for all sores. 

" Carrots prepared in the same way, make an ointment, 
perhaps, that excels all others for old sores. What house- 
keeper who thinks carrots indispensable in soup, ever thinks 
to inquire why they are so ? Much more, if she knows, to 



145 

teach her children that it is because they contain an excess 
over other vegetables of pectic acid, which assists to gelatin- 
ize that property of the meat in the liquid, and render the 
soup richer. 

" How many know when they read of the okra plant, what 
it is, or that its pods furnish one of the richest vegetable 
substances that grow, for soup? 

'• Botany ; household botany ; botany of food-bearing 
plants, if taught children, would enable many persons to 
live far more comfortably and healthily than they do in 
their ignorance. 

" A better knowledge of botany would promote the cul- 
tivation of flowers, and offer an endless source of amuse- 
ment and eojoyment to children ; besides promoting their 
health. It would be a true source of economy. It would 
use up little waste portions of time. 

'' The use and value of money should be early taught to 
children. One of the most effectual ways to do this is to 
learn them, as far as may be, to make their own purchases, 
and to keep an account of the cost of everything purchased 
for them. This should be footed up every year, and thus a 
young lady who never earned a dollar, might see how many 
she had cost. Such r.n accouiitj too,would serve her as a guide 
to know how much many useless articles had cost, and how 
soon a little income could be absorbed in flimsy dresses. 

" It is poor economy for a woman to spend days and 
weeks upon a piece of ornamental needlework, and at the 
same time hire her plain sewing done. It is generally poor 
economy to hire work done that you could just as well do 
yourself. 

7 



146 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Cheap articles are not always economical ones. I knew 
a family who furnished a house with cheap furniture. In 
three years the carpets had all to be replaced. A set of 
parlor chairs and sofa had cost twenty-five per cent, of the 
original price in repairs. A cheap piano had been sent 
back, and a new one bought. And so on of all the articles 
in the house. An addition of fifty per cent, to the first 
cost, would have been fifty per cent, saved. 

" No one, whether rich or poor, whether owner or not, 
has a right to destroy anything that would be useful to 
another. 

" ' I can do as I please with my own,' is false philosophy. 
Property is a loan of Providence that we must account for 
strictly. If you have an old garment that you do not want, 
some one else of God's creatures does ; and you have no 
right wantonly to destroy it because you are the acknow- 
ledged owner. 

" The gift of an old coat may sow the seed that will ripen 
you a valuable field. An old bed-quilt that you have cast 
aside, may save a poor woman from a fit of rheumatism ; 
or that pair of old boots, if given to some poor boy instead 
of being thrown into the fire, might enable him to go to 
school, and afterwards perhaps to Congress, or what would 
be still better, become a useful mechanic. 

" Economy in all expenditures is not parsimony. A man 
or woman may be saving, without being niggardly. A per- 
son may be generous without being lavish. Carelessness of 
expense is no mark of wealth or respectability. And cer- 
tainly a mean disposition to cheapen, and beat down the 
price of goods, or hire cheap labor, is not a mark of a gen- 
erous mind. 



ECONOMY IS NOT PARSIMONY. 1^7 

" Some persons are afraid to say, ' I cannot afford it.' 
They forget that is the highest recommendation of credit. 
It is no mark of want of money — it is an evidence of pru- 
dence in expenditures. 

'^ Many a family have been ruined because the husband 
could not say to some extravagant demand of his young 
wife, who had never learned the value of money, or the ruin 
of following a foolish fashion, ' 1 can't afford it.' 

^' To a demand of some poor suffering widow, however, 
for a trifling assistance, a great many of those most guilty 
of extravagance, are ready to say, * I can't afford it.' 

^' No person can afford to be sick, and therefore the art 
of preserving health should be constantly taught in all 
families and schools. It is not generally taught in churches, 
for of all other places they are the worst ventilated. Many 
of our school-rooms too, are the hot-beds where the seeds 
of disease are planted. Few nurseries are nurseries of 
health. Bed-rooms are places where the living are en- 
tombed. Neither body nor mind can enjoy health without a 
constant contact with pure air. 

" The best advice in regard to the management of ser- 
vants and children, is to avoid fault-finding. It never cures 
the fault. If pleasant words and good advice will not do 
it, you may as well give up. Don't fret whenever you find 
that those you have directed to do certain work, have not 
the judgment of yourself, or have lacked energy, or failed 
to execute your orders. Inexperienced minds lack fore- 
thought. They do not lack sensitiveness when chided for a 
fault. If the chiding is oft repeated — perhaps when least 
deserved — the ear grows dull and mind hardened, and 
instead of reform, a fixed carelessness ensues. 



ItlrS ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

'' There is economy as well as humanity, in the care of 
the sick ; for with a proper care the patient may recover, 
instead of lingering through a long confinement. The dis- 
ease of the mind is often equal to that of the body, and re- 
quires constant watchfulness and cheerfulness on the part 
of those in charge. It is well said that recovery depends 
more upon the nurse than the physician. A good nurse will 
always keep a room well ventilated, and in neat order. To 
some minds, it is a cause of deep distress when sick to see 
everything in confusion. 

" Never ask a sick person what he or she would like to 
have to eat ; but provide some little delicacy that is suita- 
ble, and bring it on a waiter covered with a clean napkin, 
and only such a minute quantity as will be sufficient, and 
not sicken the weak stomach at the sight of so much that 
cannot be eaten. 

'' There is nothing more valuable in a sick-room than 
chloride of lime. It keeps the atmosphere healthy, even in 
such horrid diseases as the small-pox. 

" For a convenient cheap disinfector, coffee is the most 
readily used and quick in its action, and rarely offensive to 
any one. Put a few grains upon any hot iron, and roast it 
in the room from which you wish to remove the effluvia. 
In a moment you will smell nothing but the coffee. Cop- 
peras, dissolved and sprinkled about is a good disinfector. 
Care must be taken not to let it fall upon white cloth, as it 
makes a permanent stain. Acids are used for disinfectors, 
but the smell to some persons is disagreeable. We know 
one who would rather smell a skunk than vinegar fumes 
while heated. Burnt sugar makes an agreeable smell, and 



SPECIFICS PREVENTIVES ^AMUSEMENTS. 149 

so does the smell of burning rosin ; but delicate lungs may 
be offended with the smoke. 

^^ I shall only mention two or three specifics, and that 
only because but little known. 

" In small-pox, the pits can be entirely prevented, by cov- 
ering the pustules as fast as they break, with a coating of 
coUodian, a liquid cuticle, sold at all the drug shops. In 
malignant erysipelas, a poultice of cranberries will effect a 
cure when all other remedies fail. 

" In all bowel complaints, the only certain remedy, that 
Is worthy the name of specific, is a tea made of the bark of 
the sweet gum tree {Liquid Jimher), that grows all over the 
United States, south of latitude 41^. It is en invaluable 
medicine for children. 

''But the best medicine, and the best nurse in the world, 
is the one that prevents rather than cures sickness. 

'■Under the. head of preventives, for they are promoters 
of health, I would rank family amusements. These, where 
well conducted, prepare the body and mind for the actual 
duties of life. Some children need amusement as much as 
they need food. If every father would play cards w^th his 
son, and at the same time teach him the evils of gambling, 
and the contempt of all respectable people for such an oc- 
cupation, the gambling trade would soon cease to exist. 

" But I do not by any means recommend card-playing. 
It is an idle game, from which nothing of practical utility 
is to be learned^. Many other games belong to the same 
category. Some, however, that appear childish to a man, 
may be very properly indulged in by children. Rolling 
ten-pins ; pitching quoits ; skating ; playing ball ; are all 



150 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

manly exercise?, but all may be indulged iu by girls with 
advantage to the development of their physical strength, 
and without detriment to their morality. 

*' Dancing for amusement, and not for dissipation, should 
not be placed under the ban of the strictest moralist. 

*' Singing for amusement should be encouraged, and ex- 
tensively practiced by all families. So should practice upon 
musical instruments. 

^'In-door amusements for children — home plays — induce- 
ments to spend the evenings at home — should be constantly 
studied by every parent. The most feasible, and the one 
which should be kept the most prominent, is family read- 
ing, and family lectures, where all are made to feel an in- 
terest in the reader, or speaker, or his subject. 

^' A great deal of useful labor may be done in every 
family, not as labor, but as a source of amusement, by 
which the mind is employed. Such is the cultivation of a 
garden. Few children, who have become accustomed to 
tending a garden, would be willing to dispense with it, be- 
cause it is their amusement. It is their happiness to see the 
flowers and fruit grow ; and they show them to their com- 
panions with as much satisfaction as the builder of a ship 
would show his work to a company of merchants. 

'' In all things encourage your children to amuse them- 
selves with something useful ; but if they strike upon a vein 
of mirth, or something ridiculous, do not restrain their 
laughter. Laugh and grow fat, is a meaning proverb. 
Laughter expands the lungs and promotes health. Do not 
tell a child that it is wicked to laugh. Learn them not to 
laugh at wicked stories, or stale, vulgar jokes, and never to 



THINGS TO LEAliX. 151 

be boisterous. Let them be merry. Let the little girl 
laugh with her doll, and not tell her it is ' so childish/ and 
that * she ought to be ashamed of herself ' — and to ^ try and 
see if she can't be a lady.' Depend upon it, she will ape 
the lady soon enough without any hot-iiouse cultivation of 
the faculty of imitation. 

^' One of the early habits that should be taught children, 
is to take care of their own clothes ; and boy or girl, as 
soon as big enough, should learn to mend, and the value of 



" There is another thing that children should 
learn," said Lillie, closing her book, and rising, 
"and that is the habit which I have acquired 
from the good example of my parents, not to 
continue my reading till I tire out my audi- 
ence, or until it is past our usual hour of re- 
tirement. It is bed-time. You must forgive 
me one and all if I have trespassed upon good 
breeding, in my anxiety to finish in one even- 
ing, what has occupied me a month in prepar- 
ing." 

Mr. Savery expressed his high satisfaction 
at her successful production, and Salinda de- 
clared that she had learned more than she ever 
did before from any lecturer of the many she 
had listened to. Mrs. Savery, owing to the 



152 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

suspicion that she was partly entitled to the 
authorship, said nothing. Not so with Frank. 

" Now, sister Lillie, that is all very good, so 
far as it goes ; but only think how much bet- 
ter it would be if it was printed in a nice book, 
which might be read by thousands in all 
coming years. '^ 

That idea embodied a thought. " It is 
worth tliinking about," said Mrs. Savery. 

It is w^orth thinking about, whether the 
readers of this book are satisfied ; and, if like 
Salinda, they think they have learned more 
than from the discourse of a lecturer of much 
higher pretensions than this school-girl, they 
should also think to whom they are indebted 
for it. Primarily, to be sure, to the writer, 
but certainly to Frank Savery ; for it is owing 
to his suggestion of " hov/ much better it 
would be," that it is liere printed in this nice 
book, to be read by v^diole generations of such 
good children as Salinda, Lillie and Frank. 



CHAPTEE V. 

Saturday— Saliada ia the Kitchen — Preparation for Sunday 
— ^Yisit to the Country. 

Satueday in the Saveiy family, Salinda 
found to be what it should be in the family 
of all Christendom — preparation for a day set 
apart for cessation from labor — devotion — rest 
throughout all the nations that worship God 
through Christ. 

By special invitation she spent the forenoon 
in the kitchen. Susan was preparing food for 
Sunday, so as to avoid cooking as far as possi- 
ble. With that view she made a large, plain 
rice-pudding. It was a common-sized milk- 
pan full. 

" I do this," said she, ''because a rice-pud- 
ding is really better cold than hot, and this 
will serve to-morrow and Monday also ; for 
then I shall be busy washing, and Mrs. Savery 
will get the dinner." 



154 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Ko ; that I intend to do myself, if you and 
she are willing." «» 

"Certainly, with all my heart; and I can 
tell yon everything while I am at work just as 
well. I always put raisins in rice-puddings, 
because they add a nice flavor. I generally 
cut them, and put them in soak over night, or 
a few hours before using ; but you must be 
careful to use the water as well as fruit. I 
put my cinnamon in soak with the raisins, as 
I always use whole sticks, and if it is put in 
the rice dry it does not always give up all 
the strength. I soak my rice soft, before I 
mix it with the milk. It should bake slowly 
about two hours." 

" "What are you soaking this meat for ?" 

" That is the edge bone of the round — the 
most economical piece of meat in the whole 
beef. I shall boil that directly, till it is nice 
and tender, and in the liq[uor I shall put all 
that pan of roast meat bones, which I have 
been saving all the week, and add my vege- 
tables, and make such a nice pot of soup — and, 
as you see, all for nothing. That soup is for 
to-morrow. You must be careful never to let 



PEEPARINa FOR SUNDAY. 155 

soup cool in the iron pot in wliich it is cooked. 
I take it out and pour it through the cullender 
into the soup tureen. It sometimes, particu- 
larly if I use a good many carrots, gelatinizes 
so as to be like a jelly. This I heat up to- 
morrow in a clean tin kettle. 

" The meat I shall take out, and while it is 
wet, I sprinkle it all over with pulverized 
cracker or rusk bread, with whatever season- 
ing is agreeable to the family. Some use gar- 
lic or onions, and various herbs. We prefer 
everything plain. I use a little salt, pepper, 
thyme, and afterwards garnish with parsley. 
This meat I put in a dish in a hot oven, just 
long enough to brown the outside. You will 
say to-morrow that it is very nice, and quite 
as good as though it was hot. This also serves 
for Monday, dinner and tea, and very like for 
breakfast Tuesday. My potatoes I prepare to- 
day, by boiling and mashing, and putting in 
this tin pan. If I have a fire in the range, 
I clap the pan in the oven, first glazing the 
top with the white of an egg. It browns and 
heats through directly. If I use nothing but 
this little charcoal furnace, I put the pan in 



156 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

this little bake-oven, first heating the lid, and 
set the whole over the coals. This and the 
soup is all that I have to cook. When pota- 
toes are better fresh boiled, I can boil a mess 
and heat my sonp with a quart of coal. 

'^ To-morrow we shall have for dinner, cold 
meat and cold rice-pudding, and hot soup and 
potatoes, with lettuce and radishes. Perhaps 
Mr. Savery will bring a lobster this evening." 

" And what about breakfast ? Do you cook 
for breakfast ?" 

" Yery little. I make a cup of tea, or cocoa. 
If I have cold potatoes 1 fry them. Then, 
with a little cold boiled ham, or corn beef, or 
tongue, or leg of mutton, with fruits in their 
season, we make a nice Sunday breakfast, 
without roasting the cook's face for it. To- 
morrow morning we shall have strawberries, 
and bread and butter, and cottage-cheese ; all 
but the bread, fresh from Mr. Savery's mo- 
ther's farm, a few miles out of town. The old 
lady has written that she would send them, 
but all hands are going out this evening for a 
ride, and to get these luxuries. I don't know 
as I ought to have mentioned it, as I believe 



ICED TEA. 157 

tliej wanted to give you a little surprise, but 
I forgot that. But you see I shall have no 
cooking to-morrow morning, and very little all 
day." 

" How admirably you have everything ar- 
ranged so as not to interfere with the Sabbath, 
and yet you will have a better and far more 
wholesome breakfast and dinner, than many 
that are obtained by toil and privations of all 
the privileges and enjoyments of that day. 
But how about tea? What do you provide 
for that ?" 

'' For to-morrow I shall make a nice custard, 
This, with the cottage- cheese — or, as some call 
it, smear-case — and radishes, with bread and 
butter, and a bit of the cold beef, if any one 
wants it, will make a nice hearty meal. Some- 
times, in warm weather, I make the tea when 
I have fire, in the fore part of the day, and 
cork it tight in a bottle, and then I put it in 
the tea-pot over a spirit-lamp, and heat it in 
five minutes, so that I have no fire at all in the 
afternoon. Last summer we got in the habit 
of taking the tea iced, and really thought it 
better than when hot.'' 



158 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

While these arrangements were going on in 
the kitchen, preparatory to Sunday, Frank 
was as busy as- a bee in the garden, and Lillie, 
with her long coarse apron, and snug cap, was 
all over the house, sweeping and dusting, and 
" setting things to rights." Mrs. Savery was 
industriously engaged upon a summer coat for 
her husband, for it was his boast that he had 
never worn one made by any other hands 
since he was married, and that no man w^ent 
neater dressed than himself. 

After dinner, Mr. Savery said to his wife, 
" What time shall we start? I told Henry to 
bring the wagon round at two o'clock. Will 
you all be ready ?" 

Mrs. Savery thought he had better take the 
girls and Frank, and leave her, she had so 
much to do. 

*' That is the very reason why you should 
go. There is nothing that enables us to do so 
much as an occasional day of rest — a little 
recreation, or relaxation from labor." 

Mrs. Savery said, " It would not be a day 
of rest to her, for she should come home much 
more tired than though she remained." 



MISTKESS AND SEEVANTS. 159 

" Even so ; and still it will be beneficial to 
you. No doubt you will feel fatigued, but you 
will sleep all the sounder, and feel refreshed 
in the morning, mucli more than though you 
had not taken the ride in the fresh air. Your 
work here will be more fatiguing than the ride.'' 

" Suppose you let me stay, and take Susan. 
I am sure she needs it more than me. Poor 
girl, she has little chance of recreation. Her 
task is work, w^ork, day after day." 

'•And pray, what is yours different from 
mine, except that you work and have the care, 
while I have none. I am able and willing to 
work, and very contented. I don't feel as 
though I should be willing to change places 
with you or any other mistress of a family. 
And I don't think that any sensible girl 
would, if every mistress would treat their ser- 
vants as you do." 

" Susan," said Mr. Savery, " if all girls 
were like you, with sense enough to know 
when they are well ofi*, there would be fewer 
unhappy, discontented, fretful mistresses of 
families. Many who marry are no more fit 
for the station they assume, than my horse that 



160 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

Heniy has just driven up to the door. So now 
to end the difficulty as to which shall go, I will 
take you all. Come, hurrah, get ready." 

However, Susan concluded, with, her cook- 
ing on hand, that she could not leave, and 
w^ould not consent that either of the others 
should stay in her place, though both, of the 
girls urged her to accept their services. 

It was a plain open wagon with, two seats. 
Salinda begged the privilege of sitting witli 
Mr. Savery on the forward one, that she might 
learn to drive. This he was pleased to give 
her an opportunity to do, because, said he, ''I 
look upon it as a part of the education of a 
girl that never should be overlooked, though 
it generally is, that she should learn horse- 
manship. Every one should be taught how, 
so that upon emergency, if not for pleasure, 
she could take charge of a horse, or a pair." 

'' My sister Clara, then, suits your ideas ex- 
actly," said Mrs. Savery. '' She can, if neces- 
sary, go to the stable and hitch up her horse 
— sometimes she does a pair — and take the 
children or a companion into the wagon, and 
. drive off a dozen miles ; and she takes pride 



REQUISITES FOR A GOOD Dr.IVEJ^. 161 

in driving by eyeiybody on the road. She is 
perfectly fearless and independent with a 
horse, either in a wagon or when she is on his 
back." 

"It truly is an accomplishment," said Sa- 
linda, "that I shonld feel proud of; and one 
that I will acquire, if Charley keeps a horse. 
Tliere is sometliing excitingly pleasant, in 
guiding a noble animal like this along a good 
road. Do you think I could make myself a 
good driver ?" 

"There is not the least doubt of it. You 
have the very first requisite for it." 

" What is that ?" 

"A calm temper, and freedom from that 
nervous impatience which runs out to the very 
finger ends of some people, and keeps them 
constantly twitching at the reins, or using the 
whip, or speaking sharply to urge the horse 
forward. Such driving will spoil any horse. 
The temper of the driver ahvays seems to me 
to afiect the horse. If one is gentle, the other 
is. A horse soon learns to know his driver, 
and frequently there is a warm affection grows 
up between them. Scolding and twitching a 



162 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

horse will spoil him as sure as the same treat- 
ment will spoil a child. This horse is gentle 
and playfulj yet spirited. I never knew him 
play a trick with a woman or child. A man 
or boy whom he does not know had better keep 
his eyes open. He would soon learn to know 
you. He would distinguish the very touch 
of your hand on the rein, it is so steady and 
firm, without pulling. Your voice, too, is 
soft ; a horse is as easily charmed by such a 
voice, as a man. There is great magnetic 
power in the human voice." 

" "What makes him prick up his ears now 
and start forward ?" 

'' It is because his ear is quicker than yours 
or mine. There is another horse on the road, 
and he hears him coming round the bend, and 
is not disposed to be passed. Kow you hear 
what he heard at first." 

" Oh, will he want to run to keep ahead?" 
said Salinda, with a slight susj)icion that her 
horsemanship might be insufiicient in a race. 

" Not unless you wish him. He is ready 
for a word of command. Speak to him as you 
give a gentle, though sudden, pull on the bit. 



doolittle's new turn-out. 163 

Ned, steady, sir. Tou see how easily he sub- 
sides. Ah, there they come ; a dashing pair 
of pampered greys, and open barouche, with 
driver in livery." 

" Oh, father," said Lillie, looking back, " it 
is the Doolittles, with their new turn-out. 
Mrs. D., Kitty, and Triphenia, with her 
bearded beau." 

" Has Doolittle 'bought that establishment?" 
said Mr. Savery. "The man is crazy. I 
understand now how it is that Tom Whip was 
hawking Doolittle's notes for fifteen hundred 
dollars, through the streets, at twenty-five per 
cent, discount. A man doing a business cer- 
tainly not worth over two thousand dollars a 
year — a mere mechanic — and a hard-working, 
honest mechanic, too — for that is Doolittle's 
character, if it is not his name — to buy a fifteen 
hundred dollar carriage and horses, just to 
gratify his weak-minded, vain wife, and badly- 
educated, proud daughters — the thought is 
sickening. Poor Doolittle ! the best wish that 
I can give him, in all honesty of heart, for I 
do feel that I am an old friend, is that he may 
never live to see the ruin that is rapidly coming 



164 econojviy illustrated. 

upon his family. No mortal hand can avert it. 
If the Maine law had been in force ten years 
ago, his reasoning faculties might have been 
saved. "Without being thought a drinking 
man, he has taken enough to ruin his intellect, 
and leave him an easy prey to the folly of his 
gad-about, do-nothing, instead of Doolittle, 
wife. The man is ruined." 

It is not likely that the load of jewel-bediz- 
zened pride that swept by in their velvet-cush- 
ioned, easy carriage, as they looked out from 
the cloud of silks and laces, upon the occu- 
pants of that humble wagon, had an idea that 
the time would ever come to them again, 
when they would be obliged to travel in so 
mean a conveyance, as a plain one-horse 
buggy. 

" Oh, Etty ! for mercy sake give me my 
smelling-bottle, or I shall faint ;" said Triphe- 
nia, as their carriage swept by, bringing her 
as she sat forward, almost face to face with 
Salinda. 

" Dear me !" said her mother and sister, 
" what is the matter ? You look pale. 'We 
had better drive back to town at once— the 



165 

country air never agreed with Triphenia — slie 
is so delicate." 

She was eighteen, and w^eighed a hundred 
and thirty-five, and if she looked pale, it was 
the pale of fuller's earth or pearl white. She 
was too much affected to answer her mother's 
anxious inquiries after her health, and so Mr. 
George Alexander Waltringham, the " gentle- 
man from the South," ventured to suggest that 
^' those vulgar people in that wagon — that one- 
horse wagon — had pretended to try to recog- 
nize her as an acquaintance, which had shocked 
her very susceptible nervous system. There 
was a very bold, forward, pert young miss, 
some country gawky, I suppose, sitting on the 
forward seat with a common-looking sort of 
man, driving the horse, while he took it easy. 
"We never see such things in Georgia. I think 
it was the vulgar look of the thing that made 
her feel faint." 

" Yes, mother ; and I think you w^ould have 
fainted too, if you had seen Avhat I did. That 
girl that George Alexander describes so cor- 
rectly, was Salinda Love well, driving that old 
lumber wagon of the Saverys, with the whole 



166 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

family packed up together. Don't you think 
the merchant's daughter is coming down in 
the world? I hope you don't blame us now 
for cutting her acquaintance. I really don't 
know what the world is coming to. I could 
not have believed it if I had not seen it with 
my own eyes. It is enough to make any one 
feel faint, who knows what good society is." 

Good society ! ! Heaven bless us ! Five 
years ago, the Doolittle family would have 
been very glad to ride in as good a wagon 
with a borrowed horse. Now they rolled 
away in a very atmosphere of their own, that 
shut out all reminiscences of scenes of early 
life and old acquaintances. 

Doolittle himself was an honest, hard-work- 
ing mechanic, but lacking that stability of 
mind which would have enabled him to resist 
the outside pressure of a weak-minded, proud 
woman, who was bringing up her children in 
idleness and frivolity, he had been forced to 
abandon a comfortable country home, for a 
fashionable city residence and an expensive 
mode of living, that, notwithstanding his large 
increase of business would lead him to one 



TALK ON THE EOAD. 167 

inevitable result — one that sooner or later 
overtakes every one who lives beyond his 
income. 

For a man, situated as Doolittle was, to buy 
a pair of horses and carriage, Savery looked 
upon as only one remove from insanity. 

" I do not envy them," said Salinda, as they 
sailed away past the humble, yet very com- 
fortable wagon in which she was riding. 

" You need not," replied Mr. Savery, " but 
they will you, if all of you live five years. 
Have you ever visited the family ?" 

" I have not, though frequently urged to do 
so by Mrs. Doolittle and the girls ^ who often 
call upon my mother. I don't know that I 
should be welcome now, as I was told they 
intended to cut my acquaintance, after, as 
they said, I had turned kitchen girl " — 

" For the Saverys. Put it all in ; we heard 
of it, but did not feel offended," added Mrs. 
Savery. " Depend upon it, if we should call 
there, we should be in danger of being eaten 
up if w^e were sugar, they would be so sweet 
upon us." 

" I wish, wife, that you would try it ; as 



168 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

everything is judged by contrast, it would be 
well for Salinda to learn Low others live, as 
well as those she is associated with." 

"Oh, there is grandmother," exclaimed 
Frank, a good deal more interested in looking 
ahead for the first sight of that much honored 
old lady, than anything his father and mother 
were saying about the Doolittles, or anybody 
else. 

Mrs. Whitlock was a lady in the true mean- 
ing of that term. She w^as of the old Puritan 
stock. For a dozen years she had been a 
widow, but in all that appertained to the man- 
agement of the farm, a scrutinizing neighbor 
said he could see no change since her husband's 
death. 

Mr. Whitlock was a man of rare good sense. 
Years before his death, he made his wdll. It 
w^as short and pertinent. " My wife," he said, 
'' has been thirty years my partner in business, 
and in company we have accumulated some 
property. If she dies first, the la-w gives me 
the entire management, without noticing her 
death any more than it would the death of my 
horse. If I die first, she is accounted by law^ 



A SENSIBLE WILL. 169 

as nobodj, and barely permitted to Lave a little 
portion of what I leave. All the property 
must be sold, whether anybody wishes it or 
not. The sanctuary of the house is invaded by 
strangers, to make an inventory of all I may 
leave behind. The law does not permit my old 
partner to carry on my old business, for the 
benefit of our children, or creditors. The con- 
cern must be broken up. Such is the law. 
Therefore, I make a will. This the law must 
execute. I constitute my aforesaid partner, my 
sole* heir, executor, and guardian of my child- 
ren and property. I trust she will continue 
the partnership business, if she deems it advisa- 
ble, just so long as she considers it profitable, 
and that she will pay all my debts, and dispose 
of my property, which will then be solely hers, 
in just such a manner as she sees proper." 

Every man that has such a wife, should 
make such a will. 

Mrs. Whitlock was in the front porch when 
the wagon drove up. It was such an unu- 
sual thing for lier to come out to see a car- 
riage pass, that she felt as though she must 
apologize for such an idle curiosity. 

8 



170 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

The children could hardly wait for the wagon 
to stop, before they were out, and through the 
gate, and up the steps, to give grandmother 
the first kiss. Mr. and Mrs. Savery both 
greeted the old lady in the same way. The 
children came naturally by their afi'ectionate 
dispositions. 

^'And this," said the old lady, ''is Nat 
Lovewell's daughter. I knew her mother be- 
fore she was her age. I am really happy on 
her account, to welcome you to my house. 
Come in. I need not ask if you are all well 
— your countenances tell that." 

" Oh, grandma, were you out looking for 
us?" 

"H^o indeed, for I did not know you were 
coming. I was going to send the things down 
by Sam this evening. But I am very glad 
you have come, for now you can pick the ber- 
ries yourselves ; I know you will like that. 

" I was out looking at that splendid carriage 
— no, not at the carriage, either, exactly ; but 
Sam had been telling me about it, and just 
then Debby saw it coming, and insisted that I 
should come out and look ; at the same time 



THE welco:me to the faem-iiouse. 171 

quoting the old proverb repeated by Sam, of 
' put a beggar on horseback and he will ride 
to the devil.' You know Sam feels a little 
bitter towards the Doolittles since Triphenia 
jilted him for her 'Southern planter,' as she 
calls him, though Sam insists upon it that he 
is nothing but a blackleg, horse-racer, and I 
don't know w^hat all. Well, well, never mind 
the Doolittles — I am heartily glad that my son 
is clear of his engagement to marry one of 
them, for I think they will all go to ruin. 

" Now, children, you go and pick the ber- 
ries, and I will get the smear-case ready, and 
your mother, and — what is your name ? for I 
never can call you Miss Lovewell — may take 
a w^alk round, or sit here until I get through 
my work. I want you — Salinda, is it? — to 
feel at home, and never mind me. You are just 
as welcome as though I made a fuss about it." 

'' Can't we help you, mother, about your 
work?" 

^' Oh, la ! no. I don't w^ant any help. Deb- 
by will get the butter ready. She is working 
it over now. I can hear her patting with the 
butter ladle." 



li'Ji ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Can t we," said Salinda, '' go out among 
the chickens, and in the orchard, and look 
through the garden ?" 

" Oh, yes, do. You will find the calves in 
that lot. I do think our old yellow cow's calf 
this year, excels any former one. The butcher 
ofi*ered me twelve dollai^, a week ago, but I 
told him that I should make it better v\^orth 
fifteen. He laughed, and said he didn't doubt 
it. Then we have such a lot of pigs — real 
butter-milk pigs. Sam says they will sell in 
a month from now at a better profit than after 
they have eaten ten bushels of corn apiece. 
I reckon there is something in it. The true 
economy of farming is to sell things when they 
bring the most profit, not when they bring the 
most money. Oh, do go and look at my lambs, 
Jotham, you used to be so fond of lambs wlieic 
you lived at home." 

Finally, all the others concluded that they 
wanted to see the lambs and calves, and pigs, 
and chickens, and so they would all go togeth- 
er ; but Mrs. Whitlock said, '* You forget, chil- 
dren, one of my precepts. Always do your 
work first and play afterwards. You have 



THE OLD FAKM-HOUSE DESCRIBED. 173 

your berries to pick, and you are to have just 
as many as you choose to gather. Better do 
that first." 

'•So we had, mother," said Mrs. Savery, 
" and therefore we will all go and do that, and 
then do our running about." 

" That is very well. Many hands make 
light work, is another of my maxims. You 
know^Avhere to find the baskets, and while you 
are about it, you may pick enough for our 
tea." 

She said truly, that they knew where to find 
the baskets. Everybody that ever knew once 
might know in all future time ; for everything 
had a place, and everything v^hen used must 
be returned to its place. It was no wonder 
that order was the law of Mrs. Savory's house. 
She inherited it from her mother. 

Every tree, shrub, vine, plant, all partook 
of the same appearance of order, neat arrange- 
ment, taste, and adaptation to their several 
situations. 

The house was one of those old-fashioned 
ones, still common in Kew England, which, 
for a farm-house it is difiicult to improve. The 



174 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED, 

objection to them now is that since wood has 
grown scarce, it costs too much to keep up the 
fire in the great chimney in the centre of the 
house ; upon each side of which in front, there 
is a " square room," one of which is the 
" spare room," and the other the " common 
room." Behind the chimney is a great 
kitchen, with its enormous iire-phice and oven. 
At one end of the kitchen is the stairway, and 
passage to the '' end door," and a buttery ; and 
at the other end is a bed-room. There is a 
" settle " on one side of the fire-place, and a 
blue dye-tub in one corner. A long, heavy 
oak table stands by the windows, with a back 
seat, a bench fixed to the wall. There is a 
"lean to" behind for a milk-room and sink 
room, just outside of which is the great stone- 
walled well, where 

" The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket," 

dangles from the long pole and great crotch 
and sweep. Then comes the " clothes-yard," 
a broad piece of turf, as smooth as a carpet. 
Even here, order and economy are exhibited 
in saving the clothes line from the weather, or 



A A^EW ENGLAND HOME. 175 

necessity of taking it down by hand and carry- 
ing it into the house. Upon the post near the 
well there is a little box, enclosing a wheel 
with a crank, w^ith which the hundred feet of 
line can be wound in one minute. When it is 
wanted it is run out in as little time over the 
forks in the top of tlie posts, and a loop hitch- 
ed over a pin at the farther end. Then a turn 
of the wheel and a catch tightens and holds it 
so. 

Beyond the clothes yard and on a lower 
level lies the garden. A drain from the house 
carries all the waste water to a tank in the 
garden, and every rain that falls washes any 
little fertilizing matter on or about the house, 
down to the garden, v/here it will do good. 

The house, as all country houses should do, 
when it is feasible, fronts the north. This 
gives the genial sun to the kitchen side, where 
it is most needed to evaporate moisture, and 
look into the broad kitchen windows on mid- 
winter day. 

To the w^est of the garden was " the little 
orchard," and across the road north of the 
house, spread out the big orchard. In front 



176 ECONOMY illustkati:d. 

of the house, and along both sides of the road 
the full length of the farm, there were two 
rows of trees, alternating with elms, maples, 
mulberry, butternut, black-walnut, and several 
great cherry-trees, and one very large pear- 
tree, and three excellent autumn apples. 
These were all planted by Mr. Whitlock, as 
he said, for tlie public. His children, or 
grand-children would see the benefit of them, 
and how much the}^ would be valued. Not 
only his children, but himself lived to see 
many a panting horse reined up in the pleas- 
ant shade of some of those trees, to recuperate 
strength for a drive over a long sunny road. 

Many a tired traveller, no doubt, sent up 
his thank-offering for the refreshing luxury of 
that way-side fruit. 

Planting shade-trees and fruit-trees by the 
wayside, ought to be inculcated as a Christian 
duty. 

On the east side of the house commenced 
the farm buildings. The first was a neat 
wagon-house next the road, tv/o-stories high, 
the upper loft a seed-room, and place to store 
wool and various ^ther things. From the 



FAEM-BUILDINGS. 177 

wagon-liouse extended a long shed, where dry- 
wood was always stored. In one end was a 
room called the shop, containing a carpenter's 
bench and tools, a portable forge, and a set of 
tools for mending harness, or saving a shilling 
by a stitch in time in a pair of shoes. At the 
other end was a room with a kettle set in an 
arch, which was nsed for making soap, trying 
out fat, and cooking food for the pigs, which 
occupied a pen on the other side of the build- 
ing, communicating with the barn-yard 
beyond, or with the little orchard, where they 
were allowed to run, except when the fruit 
w^as ripe and falling from the trees. Con- 
nected with the pig-pen was the hen-house, 
and beyond that a large yard in which they 
could be shut whenever it was desirable to 
keep them out of the garden. One side of the 
poultry-yard was formed by the corn-crib, 
with an opening for them under the building, 
so that every grain that fell was not wasted, 
but was picked up by some sharp-eyed biddy, 
always watching for a chance grain. 

•'If you keep hens," said Mr. Whitlock, 
'' under the crib, you will not keep rats or 
8^ 



178 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

mice. It is only a question of which is most 
profitable." 

The barn was a pattern of convenience. 
The milking-yard was between tlie wood-shed 
and barn. The stable-yard on the south side, 
the stables occupying a basement. A rise of 
ground on the north side, gave a roadway, by 
a slight inclined plane, to the second story of 
the barn. When a load of hay was driven in, 
the driver w^ithout any assistance, could hitch 
a tackle-block to the wagon-bed, and detach his 
team and hitch them to the fall, and start 
them forward, lifting the whole load, which 
then swung round by a crane over the great 
bay, when by a simple contrivance the ropes 
on one side unhooked, and down dropped the 
whole load. In this way, in fifteen minutes, 
he could unload and start out for another. 
Thus a hundred tons could be put under shel- 
ter without any of tlie hard work and heavy 
expense of pitching and stowing away. 

One of the things that most grieved Mr. 
Whitlock about his barn and stable arrange- 
ments was that he had no hill-side spring that 
he could lead through pipes to every animal 



THE WINDMILL. 179 

as it stood in the stall. If he had had a spring 
a hundred feet lower down than his stable, he 
could have still got a supply by means of that 
curious and very valuable little hydraulic 
machine, the " Water-ram." But his situation 
afforded neither one nor the other ; but he did 
the next best thing that he could do ; he made 
extensive cisterns near the barn, but the water 
had to be pumped up by hand. His spirit 
perhaps now looks down to see how Sam 
and his mother, by the aid of scientific dis- 
coveries, have obviated this difficulty. On the 
top of the barn is one of " Halliday's Wind 
Engines," a newly invented windmill, that 
regulates its own sails to any wind, high or 
low, and pumps a constant stream of water 
up to a reservoir in the barn, so situated that 
it is covered with hay in winter and never 
freezes, and from which water can be drawn 
to every stall, pig-pen, poultry-yard, and for 
the cows in the milking lot. It is a cheap, 
valuable, labor-saving machine. Its use is 
true economy. 

" Mother," said Mrs. Savery, as they came 
in with their baskets full of the ripe fruit. '^I 



180 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

have never known your strawberries so plenty 
and fine-flavored as this year; how do you 
account for it?" 

''We read in the newspaper, that the straw- 
berry bed should never be manured in any 
way except with decayed wood or leaves, and 
that spent bark from the tanner's yard was 
first-rate. Tliis is the second year that we 
have tried it, and in addition to that, this sum- 
mer, Samuel waters them with a decoction of 
fresh oak bark, because he read that tannic 
acid w^as necessary to give strawberries that 
rich flavor. The experiment has cost nothing, 
and the profit is incalculable. It, with the 
frequent waterings he gives them, will more 
than double the yield of the bed. By the by, 
that last improvement was your suggestion, 
Jotham ; so that we can well afford to give 
you all that you want. 'Now remember, 
if your little bed does not give you all 
that you can eat, you must send out here and 
get a supply. It is a great deal more pleasure 
to me to give them to you than to sell them. 
Why what started Frank and Lillie off" on the 
run ? Oh, I see now, they got a glimpse of 



UNCLE SAM AND THE CHILDREN. 181 

tlieir uncle Samuel, coming through the 
orchard. There he is like a playful boy, down 
on the grass, with both of them on his lap. 
He will dirty Lillie's frock, I'll warrant, or 
stme mischief. I do wish Sam was married, 
and had some children of his own, if he would 
love them as well as he does your's, Mary." 

" K it warn't for one thing, mother, I could 
find a match that w^ould please you." 

" Oh yes, I understand, but Charley Good- 
man is just as good a man as Sam Whitlock, 

and here Salinda began to get uneasy. 

Oh you need not blush to own such a 
young man as your lover. I do wash it was 
the fashion, as soon as a couple are betrothed, 
to own it to their friends, and treat each other, 
and be treated accordingly. It would be a 
very happy pleasant state of society, and often 
lead to better results than the present fashion. 
Besides it would avoid lying." 

Samuel now came in, as his mother said, as 
rough as a bear, with his long beard, and 
dirty as a pig from a week's toil on the farm, 
yet when introduced to Salinda, in her eyes, 
he dropped all the roughness of the farm, for 



182 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

she only saw and heard, a most polite well- 
bred gentleman, well read, and full of intelli- 
gence upon every subject. 

" Is it possible," she thought, '' that this is 
the man that I have heard so ridiculed by the 
Doolittles, as Triphenia's country beau. "Why 
he is as much superior to that fop of her's, as 
man is superior to a monkey." 

It is well, Charley Goodman, that you are 
firmly seated in her lieart, for there is one 
beneath that rough exterior that beats in uni- 
son with hers. If it was free, it might be 
won, for she likes the man, and is fairly in 
love with his country home. 

"What a table they sat down to about six 
o'clock. Strawberries and sugar, strawberries 
and cream, strawberries and such nice cool 
milk, for I forgot to mention the ice-house, one 
of the luxuries and economies of every farm. 

Then such sweet butter and fresh-baked rye 
and Indian bread, and old style light biscuit. 

When the butter was commended, the old 
lady told how she made it. 

" I have tried churning sweet milk, and I 
have churned my cream sweet, and I have 



BUTTEK AND SMEAE CASE. 183 

kept it till it soured. T have washed my but 
ter, and I have made it without washing, and 
after all I could not lay down any fixed rule 
for everybody to follow. If I get every drop 
of buttermilk out, either by washing and 
working, or working alone, my butter will 
keep sweet a year. This was made of sweet 
cream, and worked once with a paddle, and 
salted with an ounce of fine rock salt to a 
pound, and a spoonful of fine white sugar, — 
that is Debby's notion — I don't think it hurts 
it any." 

" And this, that you call smear case, how 
is it made ?" 

"You saw Debby, when you were in the 
milk-room, emptying the bonny-klauber in 
the brass kettle. That is brought to a scald, 
and the curd settles down and the whey rises. 
We pour off all we can, and then turn the 
w^hole out in a strainer over the whey-tub and 
let it drain an hour or two." 

" Is that all, grandma ?" 

" Oh no ; it is then tied up and hung away 
to drain all night. It is then in quite a hard 
cake. This we crumble up by hand, and add 



181 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

about a gill of cream to a quart, with a little 
salt, and that is smear case; it is the Dutch of 
soft cheese. If we want to send it to market, 
we make it up in little round balls and lay them 
between two clothes, and put a board and 
w^eight on top to press them down into little 
cakes, like small biscuit, and these are called 
cottage cheese, or Dutch cheese. Sometimes 
the cream is entirely omitted. It is a good 
wholesome food for those that like it." 

" Of which I am one, said Salinda ; though 
I never tasted any so good as this before." 

''The enjoyment of eating is greatly owing 
to surrounding circumstances ; I don't think 
I could relish my food as well, where I knew 
that neatness never had an abiding-place. 
This is economical food, for we only value milk 
after we have got the cream, for pig feed. Do 
you prefer that brown bread to the biscuit ? 
That is what I call my half and half — equal 
parts of corn meal and rye, the bran of each 
only sifted out. Scald the meal and mix it 
thoroughly into a mush, and then add the rye, 
and knead it well. You can't make bread 
without hard work. I used to do that, but I am 



TIME TO GO. 185 

not strong enoiigli now, but Debby is. She is 
a right good girl for strong work." 

" I guess, mother, we must be going, to get 
home before dark." 

'' Well, I'spose you must. I am really 
'bliged to you for this Yisit. I shall not urge 
you to stay longer, because I know its time 
you were going." 

'' Indeed Mrs. "Whitlock, I think the obliga- 
tion is all on our side." 

" Oh no, Salinda, remember it is more 
blessed to give than receive. And besides, 
you don't know ho\v much it does an old 
Avoman's heart good, to have her children come 
back t(j the old homestead, and sit around the 
same table once more. And as for you, I 
really wish you would come every week, or 
for the matter of that, every day. You have 
done a sio:ht of o-ood." 

" Why how? I don't understand a word." 

" I will leave it for Lillie, the young rogue, 
to tell you. She says : grandma, do see how 
uncle Sam is fixed up, all out of compliment 
to Salinda." 

It was not that altogether, it was the natu- 



186 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

ral homage and respect of a noble heart to 
beauty, intelligence and worth. It was the 
evidence of good breeding, often found under 
the roughest exteriors upon American farms. 
Sam Whitlock the farmer, would be, always 
will be, Samuel Whitlock the gentleman born, 
gentleman bred, gentleman in all that makes 
the character. He had in his young days 
fixed his heart upon a girl who as she grew 
up, could not understand that character, and 
luckily for him, concluded to break her troth, 
since which he had fallen into habits of indo- 
lence, as regards the exterior appearance of a 
gentleman. Salinda had unconsciously awak- 
ened that feeling which prompts a man to look 
to personal appearance, and the quick eye of 
his mother, as well as Lillie, saw it, and felt 
grateful to the object. She thought and said, 
" You have done a sight of good." 

Just as they were going out to the wagon, 
the Doolittle carriage was coming down the 
road. Sam fairly outdid his nature, in the 
little courtesies of the occasion. Was there a 
little natural feeling, to let Miss Triphenia 
see that he was not utterly discousoUite ? "Was 



THE DOOLITTLES AT THE FARM. 187 

there on the part of Salinda, a little desire to 
assist him, even at the risk of being called, as 
she was called, ''the shameless flirt." The 
girls wonld have preferred to dash by with a 
simple nod of recognition, but their mother 
either felt guilty of snch rudeness, and order- 
ed the driver to rein up, or else she saw the 
baskets of tempting strawberries, and was 
prompted to the act by a spirit of greediness. 
Let U.S hope it was not the latter. A stranger 
might have thought the new-comers were the 
warmest friends of the family, so enthusiastic 
was their greeting. They were so delighted to 
have the opportunity of meeting their old 
friends and neighbors all together. The girls 
complimented Salinda upon her skill in driv- 
ing, if was ''such an accomplishment." 

" If we had such a lovely little snug carry- 
all, and only one horse — but pa would have 
two — we should certainly learn to drive." 

How quick the wicked remarks made as 
they drove past, had passed into the ocean of 
forgetfulness. 

Those remarks were to the backs, and these 
to the faces of those they talked about. What 



188 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATEl). 

a liapjDj tiling our thonglits are liiclden, and 
half our words unheard. 

Samuel, as the old ladj remarked, was all 
hmiself again. He was full of life, and ''just 
as polite as ever." He was sending a pang to 
every heart in the Doolittle carriage. George 
Alexander Waltingham in his heart felt that 
Triphenia was a fool to throw away such a 
man, and such a prospect of being the mistress 
of a house and farm like this for a gam- 
bler. He almost spoke the word, so strongly 
he thought of it. But he covered up his 
thoughts with his supercilious actions, which 
he thought would pass well in the present 
company, as evidence of high breeding. Ex- 
cept with a fraction of the company, he was 
very much mistaken. The others thought 
him just what he was — an adventurer, a fop, 
a libertine. He was one of a numerous class, 
that pluck flowers only for their fragrance, 
while fi^esh with morning dew, and then cast 
them away as worthless trash. 

Mrs. Whitlock and her son, both insisted 
upon the Doolittles stopping for some straw- 
berries. She liad already spoken a word to 



THE CONTRAST. 181) 

Debby, and she had already reset the table, 
while they were making excuses for doing just 
what they were most anxious to do, so that 
by the the time they got in the house, every 
thing was ready for them to sit right down to 
such a repast as they most ardently desired, 
notwithstanding the repeated protestations 
that they ''had not the least occasion in the 
world." And notwithstanding tlie girls luid 
" cut the acquaintance" of Salinda, she was 
most pressingly urged to call upon them, 
" before they left town on their summer tour." 
Of course Mrs. Savery and Lillie were includ- 
ed in the invitation, though Kitty said she 
hoped " that stuck-up school-girl would have 
sense enough not to come." The truth was, 
that she felt herself the foil that added lustre 
to Lillie's diamonds of a cultivated mind, 
whenever they were brought into contrast. 

" Speaking of contrast," said Mr. Savery, " I 
am going to show you the contrast of Mother's 
farm." 

The man was thinking, l^obody said a word 
about contrast ; they all thought of it though. 

"It is Doolittle's fother's — old Captain 



190 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

Doolittle — it is only half a mile out of the way, 
and except the half mile, the best road, and 
then you will see a greater diversity of sce- 
nery too, and have more food for thought. 
This way. ISTed knows the road." 

" Do you think that Mrs. Doolittle will come 
this way, father," said Lillie. 

" Not a bit more than she would drive 
through fire. I doubt whether that Mr. What- 
do-you-call him, will ever hear that the family 
ever had any American ancestors. You know 
they have a coat of arms, and trace back on 
his side to some remote baronetcy. There is 
not an old castle in Sir "Walter Scott's novels, 
that some of tlie Doolittle family were not 
connected with in their opinion. But liere is 
the last baronial hall of the family." 

The house stood '• back side to the road," 
and a very unsightly show its old wood-colored 
walls, and mossy roof, and broken windows 
made. The well was in line with the road- 
fence, with a horse-trough outside, and a hog- 
wallow beyond, that looked like the slough of 
despond, to any one that would approach the 
well from that side. This puddle extended 



THE DOOLITTLLE FARMHOUSE. 191 

beyond the gate, and had to be crossed on 
rails thrown in the mud. The gate had to be 
lifted around npon one hinge. It was always 
fastened with a pin, provided the pin w^as not 
lost, or the gate had not been rooted open by 
the hogs ; to prevent w^hich, three dogs stood, 
or rather slept guard on the portico, which 
contained a great assortment of old saddles, 
harness, hoes, rakes, wheels, loom, old coats, 
hats and boots, in a sort of public free exhibi- 
tion. 

Beyond the well, on one side, was the hog- 
pen, wdth an opening to the road ; for the 
owner believed in the largest liberty for his 
stock. On the other side was an open wagon- 
shed, where the hens roosted, and did the 
ornamental work of the go-to-meeting car- 
riage. Eight in front of the gate was the 
wood-pile, frequently furnished with whole 
trees, snaked up, because the cart was broken, 
or the w^agon had gone to mill. 

The barn was right opposite the house, and 
the cow^-yard in the road between, wdiich, in 
addition to the wood-pile, was encumbered 
w^ith all the broken down carts, wagons, sleds, 



192 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

harrows, plows, hay-racks, fence-posts, and 
sticks of timber, that had been or might be in 
use during the century. In the summer, a 
good part of this chevaux-de-frise was hidden 
from view by a rank growth of stramonium. 

From the house and barn, boards had fallen, 
or were dangling by one nail ; and the orchard 
looked as though nothing but the scythe of 
Time had ever been there as a pruning-hook. 

The garden palings had been broken, and 
the holes stopped with brush from the snaked 
up trees at the wood-pile. A hole in the 
orchard wall was patched with an old cart-bed. 
One of the big doors of the barn, which Mr. 
Savery said had hung for a year by one hinge, 
had gone down at last, and was propped up 
sideways with a rail. An old harrow stood 
guard in place of a stable door, and some 
scraggy poles at the barn-yard did service 
where bars and bar-posts were both gone. A 
swarm of bees were at work in the old chaise- 
box, not having been able to get any other 
hive. That had deprived the old lady of the 
privilege of going to meeting for the balance 
of the summer. The garden had been made. 



FOOD FOR THOUGHT. 193 

and unmade by the hens, three times, and 
then given up, because " they couldn't afford 
to be always making garden." 

It was a contrast — it was food for thought. 
Salinda went home a wiser as well as happier 
girl than she went forth. She had seen much 
and learned much — much that is never learned 
in schools. Schools that turn out mindless 
machines — expensive experiments to cramp 
reason out of its natural purpose. Schools 
that teach music that gives just as much 
accomplishment as the hand-organ possesses. 
Schools of design, that teach children to badly 
copy a bad picture. History and geography 
is taught just as much as the parrot is taught 
sense by repeating words. Schools of indus- 
try, that teach needle-work that is utterly 
impracticable and useless all through life. 
Such is fashionable education. 

They found company w^aiting for them when 
they got home. Mr. and Mrs. Lovewell, and 
Charley Goodman, were there. The meeting 
was as joyful as though they had been sepa- 
rated for a year. S-alinda's mother met her 
with a warm embrace. Her father with a 
9 



194 OIGOKOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

dignified smile and formal sliake of the hand. 
How she did wish he w^ould press her to his 
breast as Mr. Savery did. She w^ould have 
put her arms around Charley's neck and given 
him a kiss — a warm token of love — fear of 
being called forward held her back, and made 
her restrain nature. But she looked what she 
felt, as they shook hands. Lillie felt no such 
restraint, and she ran up to him and put her 
arms fondly around his neck, and gave him 
such a kiss ; laughing heartily as she said to 
Salinda, " that is the way to do it, isn't it, 
Charley." 

Charley expressed his very high satisfaction 
at that mode of salutation, and returned it 
with a hearty, '^ God bless you, Lillie, my dear 
good girl. You are as fragrant as a bed of 
strawberries." 

" No wonder, and that reminds me." She 
cast a look at her mother, as much as to say. 
Shall I ? Her mother looked, Yes, and away 
she bounded, returning in a few^ minutes with 
a fine dish of sugared strawberries, followed 
by Susan with plates and spoons. It was a 
very grateful treat: the berries and creaju 



WAIT A2^D WATCH. 195 

both SO fresh and sweet. Salinda said, " I 
think, father, that I can give you something 
that you will like, if possible, better than the 
strawberries." 

" Oh, I know what 'tis," said Lillie, and 
away she ran for the smearcase. Instead of 
one, she brought three dishes. Mrs. Lovewell 
declined, but Mr. Lovewell said it was deli- 
cious. Of course, Susan had added bread 
and butter. Charley told Lillie that he had 
not tasted but one thing better since he came 
in the house, and that preceded the strawber- 
ries. 

" You shall taste something better still be- 
fore you leave. Wait and watch." 

He had not to wait long. Lillie proposed 
that he should go and see how neat Salinda 
had got everything arranged up stairs. " Oh, 
she is getting to be a famous housekeeper. 
Susan and her are on great terms in the 
kitchen." 

He did admire the neat arrangement. His 
heart was full. Salinda stood before him, 
more lovely than ever. It was an impulse of 
the moment that led him to do what he had 
so often ardently desired to do, yet dared not 



196 eco:n^omy illustkated. 

venture. He took her in his arms, pressed 
her fondly to his heart, and kissed her passion- 
ately. It was the happiest moment of her 
hfe. It was the first, as she fondly hoped, of 
a long series. 

" My dear, dear little wife. How you do 
win upon my heart every day. How much I 
should love you.'^ 

Her head sunk upon his breast. She was 
in an ecstasy of delight. Tears of joy streamed 
down the good Lillie's cheeks, and the afi*ec- 
tion of her heart gushed out. She too felt the 
impulse, and she threw her arms around botli, 
and as she kissed Salinda, said : 

" Let me too be happy." 

The tears of the trio mingled. There were 
other moist eyes, looking at this scene. Mrs. 
Savery and Mrs. Lovewell, had followed them 
up stairs, and had, unnoticed, witnessed the 
whole of this outgushing of nature. What 
mother could refrain from sympathizing with 
such children. Mrs. Lovewell did not chide, 
she only cautioned prudence. " She had no 
objection to this show of what their hearts 
felt, if only indulged in presence of some one 
who would be a little restraint, so that they 



SATISFACTION. 197 

would not act foolishly, as lovers are some- 
times inclined to do. Even in affection, there 
should be a degree of dignity and respect. 
There is some truth in the old adage, that 
' familiarity breeds contempt.' It is not safe 
for human nature to trust to good resolutions. 
1 do not counsel coldness and reserve between 
an aflSanced couple, but such reserve as pro- 
duces respect." 

Mrs. Lovewell expressed a high degree of 
satisfaction at all of Salinda's arrangements, 
and what she heard of her disposition and pro- 
gress in the study of the art of housekeeping : 
and Charley felt that she had never appeared 
so lovely before. He knew very well what a 
good teacher she had, and that she was acquir- 
ing accomplishments of the highest order for 
an American woman, such as no public semi- 
nary ever gives. 

Of all the members of that little party that 
night at Mr. Savery's, it would be difficult to 
tell which went to bed most happy. Even 
Mr. Lovewell, with all his apparent coldness, 
had a warm heart, and was most proud of his 
daughter, and happy to see her happy. 



198 ECONOMY ILLUSTSATED. 



CHAPTEK YI. 



The Visit to the Doolittles. 



E"oT long after the above events, Mrs. Savery, 
Salinda, and Lillie, went to make their visit to 
the Doolittles. Of course they were received 
with demonstrations of great delight. The 
door was opened by the coachmanj gardener, 
man of all work, and good at none — a useless 
appendage and foolish expense to such a 
family. He was attending to this duty, as 
Mrs, Doolittle apologized, because both of 
their chamber girls had suddenly left. 

" They were very impertinent, asking me for 
their wages, time after time, instead of waiting 
for me to give it them when it was convenient ; 
and, finally, this morning they told Doolittle 
about it, and he, the fool, gave them the 
money, and no quicker than they got it, they 
both packed up and cleared out. I do wish 
men would attend to their own business, and 



THE D00LITTLE3 AT HOME. 199 

not underfcake to manage our household affairs. 
However, I am glad they are gone, for they 
had got to be quite worthless. You can see 

that bv the looks of the house." 

«/ 

Indeed it was easy to see that somebody was 
quite worthless about the house. The parlors 
were elegantly furnished, so far as costly frail 
furniture could make elegance, and that was all. 

There was scarcely a chair or sofa that was 
not broken or scratched, or torn, and every 
crevice showed theworthlessness of those whose 
business it had been to keep the furniture free 
of dust. Salinda counted five holes in the lace 
curtains, punched by dirty fingers. Perhaps 
they had been made by marble fingers, for 
several had been broken from the statuettes 
which ornamented the mantels. There were 
several grease spots upon the carpet, one of 
which bore unmistakable evidence of a recent 
fall of bread and butter. The piano was out of 
tune, because the " children will keep thump- 
mg at it." In short, the whole house was out 
of tune. About an hour after the arrival of 
their guests, " the young ladies " sailed down 
stairs, with a profusion of fancy gauze, silk, 



200 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

lace, ribbons, and jeweby, and their hair in 
such a friz as might astonish, if not frighten, 
one of the aborigines of the American forest. 
There was no need of half the Ij^ing excuses for 
their late appearance ; such as having so much 
work to do, in consequence of the departure 
of those ungrateful girls, and quite forgetting 
how late it was, and how punctual Mrs. Savery 
always is, and how they had to dress each 
other's hair. Salinda might have believed the 
latter, as it was impossible for either to make 
such a fright of herself alone, if she had not 
caught a glimpse of a well-kno^\m French hair- 
dresser, as he went down staii*s. 

Of course the girls could not show their pro- 
ficiency in music, because the piano was out 
of tune. Lillie said slyly, that she never knew 
it otherwise. It was ii standing excuse. If it 
ever happened to be in order, the girls always 
had " horrid colds." 

Salinda proposed to look at the garden. 
They could not refuse, though it was in a 
" shocking condition." In that they spoke the 
truth. But the most shocking part of it was, 
that it was filled with expensive shrubs and 



THE GARDEN. 201 

flowers, to such a degree that there was no 
room for fruit, or anything beyond a few roses, 
of any practical use. 

Tender plants w^ere choked with grass and 
weeds, or trampled on by careless feet, and 
those of larger growth bore marks of having 
officiated in place of a clothes-line, and the 
paths were whitened with dried soap-suds. 
Grease, dirt, old rags, broken crockery, scraps 
of meat, and cooking utensils made up a slut's 
museum around the back basement door and 
windows. The full view was hidden from the 
garden by an untrimmed, and of course un- 
productive, grape-vine, that shut out the sun 
from the very place where it was most needed 
to dry up the moisture and prevent miasma. 

Just as the party returned to the house, 
there was a tearing ring at the door-bell, and 
a thundering knock at tlie basement door at 
the same time. As it was doubtful which to 
go to first, the man took a middle course and 
went to neither. Directly those outside grew 
impatient, and began kicking the doors as 
though they would knock them down or force 
them open. 

9* 



202 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

"Why don't that lazy fellow go to the 
door ?" said one of the girls, " It is really 
provoking." 

"Why did she not herself open it when she 
was within three steps when the bell rang. 
It would have compromised her dignity. At 
length the lower door w^as opened, and by the 
noise, a mad bull came in, stamping y/ith fury. 

" I'll tear your eyes out, you old black 
nigger, if you don't open the door next time 
when I am starved. Where is Ned ? If he's 
got in first, I'll lick him." 

Up stairs he went to ascertain that fact. 
ISTo one else being likely to let in master 
JSTeddy, Mrs. Doolittle suggested to Kitty that 
she might attend to it, just this once. She 
went oS muttering about having to do ser- 
vant's work. Master Ned came in uproari- 
ous, but better-natured than his fighting 
brother Welt — the short name of Wellington. 
Perhaps his fighting character was partly 
owing to his name. Character is often influ- 
enced by a slighter circumstance. 

" Oh, you're so dressed up you couldn't 
come to the door, eh ? I'll pay you for it some 



THE BOYS AT HOME. 303 

time. Miss Kitty. I won't open the door, nor 
let any of the rest of 'em, for your beau, and 
mother won't be here to make me, for you 
always have him come when mother is out. 
See if I don't." 

" Do hush, iSTed, you don't know who is in 
the parlor." 

" I don't want to know. Old Whiskerandos, 
I s'pose ; he's here all the time. I wish Phene 
would have him and done with it." 

Mrs. Doolittle closed her ears to this inter- 
esting conversation, under the impression pro- 
bably that by so doing she would close those 
of her visitors. 

Either of his sisters could have wrung ISTed's 
neck, without any compunctions of conscience. 
Now another actor, in the person of the mad 
bull, came tearing up the basement stairs, and 
" pitched in " to give Ned a licking because 
he got in first, and to serve Kitty in the same 
way for letting him in. 

" He bet me his cap that he would get home 
first, and get in and up to the parlor door ; and 
he cheated; he had no business to come in 
this way when I thought he was going to 



204 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

t'other door, and then we conld have a fair 
race up stairs. But I'll have the cap any- 
how." 

At that he went at him to get the cap, and 
down they both went in the hall in a regular 
bull-dog, rough-and-tumble light. Mrs. Doo- 
little still oblivious. Kitty had returned with 
a face that needed no rose pink. It was 
burning red, and she bit her lip to keep in the 
angry words that would have poured out if 
they had not been restrained by the company 
of strangers. 

'' Oh dear, what is that ?" exclaimed Mrs. 
Doolittle, as a crash that jarred the house, 
came from the field of combat in the hall. 

Instinctively all rushed out to see. A niche 
had been constructed in the wall at the foot of 
the stairs for a piece of statuary. Unfortu- 
nately it was too shallow to hold a plaster cast 
of some mythological goddess that the young 
ladies had purchased, because '* the place 
looked so naked without somethino;." 

Somehow in the scuffle, this had been jarred 
so that it toppled over, and down it came upon 
a table, made more for ornament than use. 



LNTERESTING SCENE. 205 

upon which stood a Chinese vase of flowers. 
The whole was a wreck together. At least fifty 
dollars had gone into the maelstrom that 
was swallowing up poor Doolittle's property. 
The boys perfectly understood that '' discre- 
tion was the better part of valor," and made a 
hasty retreat. The girls raged — they lost their 
discretion. Their mother was angry enough 
to have torn the hojs like a tiger, but finally 
consoled herself for all the loss, with the 
thought that that nude figure had been got 
rid of, because "she never thought it looked 
decent." Mrs. Doolittle was one of those 
admirers of statuary, who think it should be 
dressed in calico frocks, or at least wear aprons. 
In the midst of the confusion, and just as Tri- 
phenia had accused her mother of moving the 
statue forw^ard on purpose to have it fall, and 
she was giving some angry retort, the door- 
bell rung, and before orders of '' not at home" 
could be given, the man, who with the cook, 
had both come upon the scene of action, open- 
ed the door, and in walked Mr. George Alex- 
ander Waltringham. 
There is an old saying, that oil poured upon 



206 ECONOMY ILLUSTRxlTED. 

a raging sea, will calm the turbulent waters. 
Perhaps it was owing to the oily nature of the 
gentleman, that he produced the same effect 
upon the turbulence of the waves that were 
raging but a moment before in this family. 

The new comer was not at all disconcerted ; 
in fact he was rather inclined to joke at the 
accident, which he did not look upon as very 
serious, — in fact he had rather expected it ; 
as he had noticed the insecurity of the thing, 
w^hich a slight jar might bring down. He 
forgot to add that he had purposely moved it 
forward with that view, looking upon it as he 
did, as such an abortion that it was no harm 
to work its destruction. 

It is but right to do him the justice to say, 
that he did not anticipate the other damage — 
the table had been placed under the niche sub- 
sequently, by somebody, or rather ''nobody," 
that omnipresent genius of mischief, who was 
constantly putting things out of place in this 
house. 

The party left the servants to clear away the 
debris, and retired to the parlor in such a 
pleasant mood of lively conversation, that 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 207 

Salinda could only compai-e it to the sudden 
outburst of the sun from dark clouds that a 
moment before had shot forth forked light- 
ning. 

In handling some of the things, Salinda dis- 
covered that she had soiled her hands, and 
whispered Kitty to go up to her room with 
her, where she could wash them. It was an 
unadvised admission behind the scenes of out- 
side appearances. 

'' Such a room," she said to Lillie that night 
in their own neat apartment, ^'I never saw 
before — I hope never to see again. The bed 
looked like a pig's nest ; I am sure it had not 
been made for a week, and the sheets and 
pillow-cases were fairly black. Every vessel 
was full of dirty slops, and the only way that 
I could wash my hands was by Kitty pouring 
water out of a broken pitcher, while I held 
them over a flower-pot that seemed grateful 
for the accidental watering. The whole room 
looked like the drift of an inundation of some 
muddy river. Shoes and shifts ; books and 
bonnets ; parasols and petticoats ; stockings 
and staylace ; tape and towels ; slippers and 



208 ECONOMY ILLU8TKATED. 

slops ; lay about in one grand mixture. The 
furniture had been costly, if not rich; now 
there was not a whole chair among half a 
dozen, and all were loaded with dresses, or 
some of the paraphernalia of a lady's dressing 
chamber. The rosewood dressing table stood 
upon three legs; the sofa seat was broken down 
in the springs, and the feet had lost the cas- 
tors, and torn the Turkey' carpet. The lace 
window-curtains were yellow, and covered 
with dust and cobwebs. But that was no 
worse than the parlor. Did you notice the 
festoons the spiders had made all along the 
cornice over the window ?" 

'' Yes, and the dust among the untouched 
books on the centre table. It would make 
my mother crazy." 

As Salinda returned to the parlor, there 
was a commotion in the tea-room. Ned was 
ordering the cook, with a few of his young 
gentleman oaths, to give him something from 
the table to eat, before the company came in. 
She heard him say : '^ I will have some — 
they'll eat it all up — I'm hungry — ^I won't 
wait — I'll steal it all, and tell my mother that 



AKOTHER CKASH. 209 

yoiT eat it, and make her discharge yoii, if you 
don't give me some, you blasted old " — • 

The balance of the sentence was interrupted 
by a scream from the cook. It was a custard 
in an elegant cut-glass dish that the boys cov- 
eted. Bread, and butter, and cake would not 
satisfy them. Cook had set the dish on the 
top shelf of the china closet, to keep it out of 
their way. "While Ned was trying to coax or 
scold the cook into gratifying his appetite, his 
brother, the mad bull, like his prototype in a 
crockery store, had got into the china closet, 
and climbed up the shelves, and got his hand 
on the coveted article. It is almost needless 
to say, that just as he sang out, '' Hurrah, 
Ned, I've got it," he did get it. His foot 
slipped, and down he came, dish and all, with 
the contents in his face and all over his 
clothes, and the dish in fragments on tlie floor. 

" I do wonder," said Mrs. Doolittle, " what 
that careless wench has broken now. I shall 
take it out of her wages, she may rest assured, 
of that." 

To prevent any one else going to see, she 
said, " sit still, don't mind it ; you know one 



210 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

broken disli always has another just behind 
it, till fate gets the three." 

Kitty lacked the discreetness of her mother 
and sister. She had turned off as she came 
down stairs, " to see what the muss was ;" and 
now came in and told the whole story. Her 
mother was sure it was all the cook's fault. 

" She is always having a difficulty with 
them boys. I dare say if she had given them 
anything in the world to eat, they would have 
gone away as quiet as lambs to their play. I 
declare I must get a new woman — I can't 
stand it." 

What good would it do to get a new one ? 
She had done the same thing a dozen times, 
with the same results. If she could have got 
a new system of family government, and 
brought her children under a wholesome dis- 
cipline, and taught them subordination, she 
would have saved herself from constant scenes 
of vexation and loss, and then the Doolittle 
boys would not have been the terror of their 
schoolmates, and the hated pests of the whole 
neighborhood. 

In spite of all the mishaps, tea w^as at 



TEA IS READY. 211 

length ready. How unlike the quiet tea-table 
of the Saverys ; how different from that plea- 
sant, simple meal at the farm. The table was 
loaded with cut-glass and china, costly and 
fragile. But the sweet home-made bread and 
plain cakes were not there. Their place was 
occupied by costly knick-knackeries from the 
French baker's — real health-destroyers. The 
tea was the only home-made thing, and that 
was weak and smoky, and when it was too 
late to remedy the defect, it w^as found that 
" nobody " had drank up all the milk. Mrs. 
Doolittle said, " she would warrant it w^as 
John, the great hog." 

Lillie did not say she would warrant it was 
not ; but from where she sat, she could see the 
face of a boy peeping into the window through 
the grape-vine, upon whose lips the stolen 
milk had left its mark. 

It was a costly, but an unsatisfactory meal. 
The cakes looked as though they were made 
for ornament and not use, and so they w^ere 
generally refused. It was not the first time 
they had done service in the same way. The 
rich sv/eetmeats were not half as good or as 
healthy as Mrs. Whitlock's strawberries. The 



212 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

stiff attempts at gentility were not half as 
pleasing as the plain conversation and hearty 
manifest welcome of that meal, which con- 
stantly intruded itself in contrast with this. 
There each lingered, loth to part. Here visit- 
ors and visited felt relieved from a tiresome 
restraint when the good-bye, and hollow-- 
hearted " do come again," had been said. At 
least one party was wiser, if not happier. 

"I have learned," said Salinda, ''a lesson 
for life. I trust I shall never forget to profit 
by it, if I should ever be a mother." 

" I do not think," said Mrs. Savery, " that 
it is necessary for you or Lillie to wait that 
event, to apply the lesson of the day to a good 
purpose. You see the effect of insubordina- 
tion, and the cost of not training up a child in 
the way he should go." 

" It is certainly very bad economy ; besides 
being extremely vexatious ; but Mrs. Doo- 
little appears to be used to it; don't you 
think, Mrs. Savery, that she stands it remark- 
ably well ? How calm she remained through 
all the storm." 

" Only to storm herself as soon as our backs 
are turned, and she is free from restraint." 



HOME INFLUENCES. 213 



CHAPTEE VIT. 

Family Scenes, and Home Influences. 

You that are strong in good purposes, sLall 
not censure the want of strength in Doolittle, 
to enter upon such a scene as was enacting 
when he came home— one oft enacted, yet, 
like all evil acts, growing stronger, growing 
worse and worse every day. 

He hesitated with his hand upon the latch ; 
he heard his wife say that she would " make 
their father tie them up, and she would whip 
them to death." 

He supposed it was the girls that she meant, 
for she was talking with them, and he thought ; 
" What, has it come to this ? must I tie up my 
daughters, for their mother to wreak her ven- 
geance upon, for some trifling dispute or dis- 
agreement? Never!" Yet he knew full 
well that her will was law, and if she willed 
it, he must obey, or have a fight himself. 



214 ECONOISIY ILLUSTRATED. 

"What should he do? What did he do? 
Just what a thousand others have before, 
whose home held no magnet, like that of the 
Saveiys, to draw them within its portals, and 
shield them from the corrupting association of 
evil companions. 

Poor Doolittle! He had come home late 
and tired, because it had been hinted to him 
that his presence with company w^ould not be 
agreeable. 

Such a man trembles as he lays his hand 
upon his own door-latch, after a hard day's 
work, and shrinks back from what he hears 
within. He hesitated, and mentally said, 
" Oh, God, is this home V then turned away 
and walked back around the corner, and 
entered one of those ever invitingly open 
doors, where a man whose face is one constant 
winning smile, stood before his customers, 
tempting them to buy some of his colored 
fluids, which they knew by experience would 
give them oblivion of the discomforts of their 
home, or make them forgetful of their own 
folly, or reckless of some indiscretion commit- 
ted or contemplated, or careless of the want 



DEINKING, AND ITS EFFECT. 215 

of money to provide home comforts, whicli in 
such, places as this are foolishly wasted. 

Doolittle needed no coaxing. He took the 
draught eagerly, and it was a large one, and 
then went and sat down in a dark corner and 

laid his head upon a table and enjoyed 

yes, that is the word, enjoyed the oblivion 
produced by a drunken sleep. He had long 
been a hard drinking man, but this was the 
first time that he had ever been drunk, — drunk 
in a public bar-room. 

He slept on unnoticed, as had a hundred 
others before him in the same corner. It is 
the efi'ect, the least injurious effect, of drink- 
ing, upon some men. Some are loquacious ; 
some are argumentative and religious; some 
are lascivious; some are excessively foolish; 
some are brutal, beastly, ugly, quarrelsome, 
wicked, combatative, murderous. Others are 
simply stupid. That was the effect produced 
upon Doolittle. He waked at length, as many 
persons have awaked from a state of insensi- 
bility, by the sound of their own name. 

Close by where he sat, was a thin board 
partition. Somebody on the other side had 



216 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

forgotten that walls have ears. If thej^ had 
not, Doolittle had, and when he heard his own 
name he opened them. His stupor had passed 
off, and his hearing faculties w^ere quick. He 
distinguished one of the voices as that of Wal- 
tringham. The other he did not knoW^jbut the 
person was pressing him for a debt, which in 
the fashionable parlance of perverted lan- 
guage, is called "a debt of honor." If it is, it 
is honor among thieves, for gambling and steal- 
ing are both in one category, in the opinion of 
those who practice neither. 

" Now, see here," said Waltringham to liis 
companion, ''you just keep easy a little while, 
and I shall make a raise. See if I don't. I 
understand the ropes. I am just now stock- 
ing the cards. I shall be sure to hold a hand 
that will win." 

"Well, old fellow, I should like to know 
how. Show me your hand. Is it all honors?" 

"Yes, trumps at that. The bullet, king, 
queen and knave." 

There could be no mistake about the latter. 
Every inch a knave. 

"Well, how are you going to play them? 



PLOTTING VILLAINS. 217 

If it is a winning game, I'll take a hand, hold 
stakes, or count my lingers for you , and come 
in for a share. What say?" 

" Just the thing. I'll tell you. But let us 
see that we are all alone. Shut that door will 
you. I|^ the coast clear ?" 

'There is nobody in the bar-room except 
one poor drunken ass, hard and fast in sleepy 
corner. Go ahead." 

Doolittle ventured to look up. He had out- 
slept all the company. It was after eleven 
o'clock. The bar-keeoer was dozino; outside 
the door, waiting for twelve o'clock, when he 
would shut up. Doolittle drew up still closer 
to the partition. There was a large knot hole, 
covered by a piece of paper, just by his ear. 
He cut this away with his pocket knife and 
every low spoken word came through dis- 
tinctly. 

" You know old Doolittle, said Waltringham 
— very well, his daughter is just one of the 
finest animals you ever saw trotted out. She 
is a real 2. 40 nag. She will win anywhere. 
She will carry me in where the gate would be 
shut and locked without her. I tell you, sh© 
10 



218 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

can let down the bars that lead to pleasant pas- 
ture. She will last good for years, and then 
bring cost. "Well, that nag is mine. The old 
woman says that; and the grey mare is the 
best horse there, I tell you." 

"But that don't bring the money. Besides, 
it will cost a pile to keep such a blooded 
animal." 

"Oh, never fear that. The old man has got 
plenty of fodder, if he has not plenty of 
money. I mean to live off of him." 

"Very fine for you, but I don't see how 
that is to get me my money." 

" Hold easy. Tou haven't heard half of it 
yet. This is game that can't all be bagged at 
once. The old woman is a fool. I can wind 
her round my finger. I pei^uaded her and 
the girls to make the old man buy a carriage 
and pair, just to cut a figure. He loves his 
toddy, and is always good-natured when he is 
drinking, and as soon as we are married, I will 
make a raise out of him, through the old 
woman and girls ; you had better believe I 
will." 

^' How are you going to do that?" 



DOOLITTLE SITS FOR HIS TORTKAIT. 219 

'• Now, I am coming to your share. I must 
have a partner. I v/ill propose to go into 
business; that will tickle the old woman to 
have her son-in-law a merchant. I will offer 
to take Doolittle in as third partner. His 
credit is good, and notes signed by you and 
me, endorsed by him will buy goods. We 
will ship them and then ship ourselves. But 
first, you must buy that carriage and horses, 
which I can persuade them to sell, when I 
take the daughter off. That will pay your 
debt, and I will take the goods and the girl 
for my share. How do you like it ?" 

" Why, it looks fair. When will you bring 
it round ? I'm in a hurry. To tell you the 
truth, I am confounded hard up, and must 
make a raise soon, or I shall have to cut stick." 

" I'll settle the matter to-morrow, if I find 
the old man in the right tune. He must have 
just so much rum aboard to make things go 
easy. If he gets too much he goes to sleep, 
and will snooze away all the evening like a 
fat pig. I meant to have arranged mattei-s 
to-day, but the cards had a bad run. The 
boys, who are as ungoverned as grizzly bears, 



220 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

got into a figlit and broke about fifty dollars 
vrortli of stiifi", and put the old woman in a 
bad humor. Then they had some stifi*, vine- 
gar-faced puritans there to tea, that cut off all 
conversation. I had to measure my words." 

" I tell you what it is, Alleck, this looks 
like a scurvy trick ; but necessity knows no 
law; and if it wa'n't for fear my wife would 
turn up and get me in limbo, I would marry 
the other girl. You say she is fresh ?'' 

" Smooth as a three-year old. Come, go in 
to win. I will introduce you as a Southern 
merchant here buying goods, and then you 
in your generosity sliall ofter me a partner- 
ship, and I will agree to go in, if Doolittle 
will take a hand. He will say he cannot raise 
the money, and then I will bring about the 
horse-trade. Depend upon it, w^e can skin 
that drunken fool before he knows it.^' 

" Skin a drunken fool, and that fool is me," 
said Doolittle to himself. " I have heard 
enough ; I have sat for my portrait, and it has 
been drawn by an artist. It is a fallacy that 
listeners never hear any good of themselves. 
I have heard that which will do me ecood. I 



THE PORTRAIT FINISHED. 221 

have beard what is rarely spoken of a man to 
his face — the truth — and I mean to profit by 
it." 

By the time he had finished his colloquy, 
he once more had his hand upon his owTi door- 
latch. He entered with a different feeling 
from that of the early evening, but it was not 
a happy one. All was silent, as before all had 
been stormy. The storm had spent itself. 
There was a desolateness in the house, but a 
greater one in his heart. He was sober now, 
but he felt the guilt of drunkenness as he had 
never felt it before, and as he then felt, never 
w^ould feel It again. Mrs. Doolittle was in 
bed, asleep or pretending to be. She had 
retired completely worn down in body and 
mind. She had scolded and fumed at the 
girls ; quarrelled with John and the cook, 
till both had told her they w^ould leave in the 
morning, which she had averted by promising 
an increase of wages. With the boys she had 
had a regular pitched battle — it was not doubt- 
ful which had won the field. 

It was a scene that always has the same 
termination — the parent yields to the child, 



222 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

and that is the end of parental control, and 
the wretched rule of insubordination. The 
young tyrant locked his mother in the garden, 
and then required all sorts of promises before 
he would open the door, and finally would 
only agree to throw the key down, and that 
Ned alone should come in the chamber that 
night. He plainly told his mother that he did 
not believe her, and would not trust her word 
— " you have broken it so often." 

Mothers, let this be a lesson. ISTever give a 
child reason to say, '' you have broken your 
word." Establish family discipline, and 
steadily maintain it. Train up a child in 
the way he should go, from the cradle, and 
you never will have to chase him down like a 
wild animal when he merits punishment, nor 
sue to him to unlock the door and let you into 
your own house. 

Mrs. Doolittle went to her bed, if not a 
wiser and a better woman, a very dissatisfied 
and tired one. It is no wonder, if she was not 
asleep, that she had no further disposition to 
quarrel, and that she was willing to let her 
husband lay down in quiet, without making 



A LKSSON FOi: MOTliKJiS. 223 

him give an account of himself, and where he 
had been, and what he had been about till 
twelve o'clock at night. Her rage and disap- 
pointment had overcome her, and worn her 
down worse than a week of such '^ slavish 
labor," as she w^as in the habit of saying Mrs. 
Saverj inflicted U23on herself. If she did, she 
did not inflict upon herself such a bitter, 
wretched, sleepless night, as this one that 
now tormented, instead of refreshed Mrs. 
Doolittle. Had she known all that her hus- 
band knew, she would have been still more 
wretched ; for the marriage of Triphenia with 
a Southern planter was to be to her a crown- 
ing glory. 

The girls had gone off to their room ; that 
room so graphically described by Salinda ; and 
there they were having a pretty quarrel be- 
tween themselves. 

Triphenia was mad because Kitty had 
brought Salinda up there to see all the dirt 
and confusion, and w^aste, and discomfort of 
such an apartment. 

It ended in both criminating each other for 
what they were both guilty of — sloth and indo- 



224 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

lence. It finally grew so warm, that Triplie- 
nia declared that she would not sleep there — 
she would not sleep in the house — never would 
sleep there again. In this she kept her word, 
though she did not probably intend it. She 
left the house in anger five minutes before her 
father came in. 

The " scene" that Doolittle took a part in the 
next morning, was not " first exhibited in that 
theatre for the only time." It was a family 
scene, but such as never occurs in " well regu- 
lated families." 

We will not try to peep behind the curtain, 
for fear, 



*5 



" Some po\Yer the gift would gie us 
To see ourselves as others see us/' 

He was miserable, wretched beyond concep- 
tion. Yesterday, he would have applied a 
panacea. To day, he would die sooner than 
touch a drop. He was a stubborn man, and 
having once made up his mind to a thing 
would not back out for trifles. He could even 
withstand the urging of his wife, when she 
had got over her first blast, '' to take a little 
something; do now, dear, you vv^ill feel better." 



MORE FAMILY SCENES. 226 

Strange is it not, that a wife should urge a 
husband to be a '' drunken fool." 

Triphenia almost boiled with rage when she 
heard her father's story; not that she had 
thrown her love away upon such a worthless 
fellow, but that his true character had been 
found out, and that he stood like a convicted 
felon, to be despised by all honest men. She 
was still more angry to think she was detected 
in such a Aveb of falsehoods as she had been 
weaving. But she concluded, instead of 
repenting and asking forgiveness, to play the 
heroic. She declared it was all a conspiracy 
to prevent her marriage, but it came too late. 
She did not ask any favors of her father — par- 
ticularly of such a father." 

" Then you can take your * gentleman' and 
leave your father and his house as soon as you 
please. You are no longer a daughter of 
mine." 

Mr. Doolittle hurried away, and shortly 
afterwards Triphenia left in a rage, declaring 
she never would again cross the threshold of 
her father's house. 

10^ 



226 • ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

It was only another lesson in the evils of 
insubordination. 

" I am really glad to hear how much more 
amiable of the two Kitty has proved herself,'^ 
said Mrs. Savery, when she heard the story. 

" Yes, mother," said Lillie, " for instead of 
opposing her, she did all she could to help her 
sister. Her mother got down on her knees 
and begged Triphenia to stay; declaring that 
her father should acknowledge his fault and 
beg her pardon for his brutal treatment, and 
receive Mr. Waltringham into the family, and 
then they would all live there so happy 
together. But she would not listen, but order- 
ed John to bring out the carriage, and took 
her trunks, and bandboxes, and drove off, 
leaving her mother without a parting word, 
and returning Kitty's good wishes with an 
angry toss of her head. Of course the family 
are in distress this evening ; nobody knows 
where Triphenia or Mr. Doolittle are, but 
folks guess that he is 

''Drunk. I will give you the word, since 
you hesitate to speak it. But you may rest 
easy about that. Look here." 



OF THE PLEDGE. 227 

Mr. Savery took from his pocket a very 
neatly engraved card with Mr. Doolittle's name 
written in hold characters at the bottom. 

"I am going to put this in a handsome 
frame, and then he Vvdll hang it up in his bed 
room. Tliis is a temperance pledge ; and it 
will be kept too, for it is made by a sober 
man, in good faith, with his eyes fully opened 
to the folly of his past career. I know where 
the lost man has been all day. He came 
directly from his house to my shop. He was 
so agitated at first that he could not speak ; 
he took me by the hand and led me into my 
little office-room, and sat down and wiped 
away the great drops of sweat, and with them 
some other drops that came from the eyes, 
and then said : 

" ' To convince you that I am in earnest, 
first give me one of those temperance pledges 
that I have so often rejected.' He wrote his 
name as you see it there, and put his hand 
upon his heart, and repeated every word, and 
said, 'With God's help this will I faithfully 
keep.' ' Amen,' said I. 

"'And now,' said he, 'I want to sign 



228 EC0:N'0MY ILLrSTKATED. 

something else. Jothain Savery, I am ruined. 
I don't own a dollar's worth of property in the 
world. It all belongs to my creditors, and I 
want to mate an assignment for their mutual 
benefit, so that all may get a fair share. If 
not sacrificed, there may be enough to pay all. 
My workmen must be paid fii^t in full. It is 
their due, for they have families dependent 
upon their wages. My stock must be paid for 
next. Then the grocer, and butcher, and pro- 
vision man, and lastly the furniture dealers, 
unless they will take back so much of their 
costly gingerbread work as remains uninjured. 
If so, let them have it at twenty per cent, dis- 
count. That is just, and that is what I desire 
to be in all this transaction. The debt for 
that foolish purchase of carriage and horses 
must take its chance — it is not worthy of 
preference — unless the man chooses to take 
back the property at exactly what I was to 
pay for it. My family I shall move back to 
the country to-morrow, and I want you to give 
them such furniture as they need — nothing 
more — and the remainder must be sold. 

" ' If my creditors will let me go on with my 



THE lawyer's office. 229 

business, I can soon pay all, with my expenses 
lessened so much. I can go back and forth 
on the railroad, so that it will be of no conse- 
quence to my work that I live out of town, 
but it will be of a great deal of consequence 
to my family.' 

" ' We went to a lawyer to get the documents 
put into a legal form. The lawyer knew me 
very well, but he did not know Doolittle, and 
so went on with his story of a client who was 
in limbo on a double charge : one for a sus- 
picion of debt — one of those debts of honor — 
and the other a charge of forgery. " It 
seems," said he, " that both my client and his 
antagonist are a couple of precious scoundrels, 
and that no longer ago than last night they 
entered into a conspiracy to marry the two 
daughters of a good-natured sort of a good-for- 
nothing, drinking fellow, by the name of 
Doolittle, who has some property, which the 
villains were to cheat him out of, as well as 
his daughters. My client had some time ago 
given his notes to his ' friend ' for a gambling 
debt, which the chap wanted. Well, the 
agreement was that they were to go snacks in 



230 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

clieating this Doolittle, and so make the money 
for that debt, as well as enough to flash awhile 
with their new wives. The debtor was to 
call on the creditor this morning, to concoct 
further measures. This he did, and at once 
began talking about the affair ; my man try- 
ing all the time, by gesticulation and ^igiif, 
and so forth, to keep him still, and to make 
him understand that there was somebody in 
the other room ; but he was too dull to take 
the hint, but began making his terms about 
the new arrangement. 

" ' I say, Walt,' said he, I shall insist upon 
one thing, before I agree to let you off from 
this debt, and that is, if I like the oldest of 
these two fillies best, I shall take my choice. 
Now, mind, that if the oldest Doolittle girl — 
w^hat did you call her — Tri — Tri — something, 
pleases my fancy best, I shall take her, and — ' 

" 'Will you?' said a lady, walking out of 
the next room, and taking the gentleman a 
slap side of the head ; ' will you ? Then learn 
what sort of a one you will take.' 

''It seems she had called just in time to 
hear this exposition. How the fellows paci- 



A CONTRETEMPS. 231 

fied her, I don't know, but these chaps are 
always full of words, and know how to use 
soft soap as well as a washerwoman. It was 
quite a contretemps, wasn't it?" 

."^It was,' I replied; 'we are all apt to 
commit just such by our unguarded tongues. 
For instance, supposing you had been so un- 
guarded as to tell this story in the presence 
of that very Doolittle.' 

'^ ' Oh, you wouldn't catch me at that. I 



am- 



''' Caught,' said I, laughing; 'caught, as 
keen as you are.' 

" ' My dear sir, what apology, what amends 
can I offer ? What shall I do V 

" ' Sit right down,' said Doolittle, accepting 
his hand so good-naturedly ; ' sit right down 
and attend to our business, and never mind 
what is past. It isn't the first good thing that 
I have lately heard of myself; that is, it will 
be good for me, I hope.' 

" It was, after all, a very amusing affair, and 
I have no doubt will be the means of giving 
Doolittle a valuable legal friend, because he 
now takes an interest in him that he would 
not have felt under ordinary circumstances. 



232 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" We soon had the papers ready, and I have 
already seen a portion of the creditors, all of 
whom are disposed to let me do just what I 
think best. Tom Whip has agreed to take the 
horses and carriage back, and is to send up 
to-night. He has a customer for them on 
better terms than the discount he offered on 
the note. 

'' I don't expect to be able to do anything 
with the furniture-men ; as they say the articles 
have been so badly kept, they are not really 
worth half price. The hardc^st part will be to 
get the family to move back to the old place 
in the country ; but they must do it, for a rock 
is not more firm than Doolittle. He is already 
a new man. 

'' Now that is my budget of news. Have 
we any more ?" 

" I think," said Charley Goodman, who had 
been standing some time back of Mr. Savery's 
chair, holding his finger on his lip as a signal 
to the others not to notice him, so as not to 
break the story ; '^ I think," said he, " that I 
can make a slight addition to your budget." 

" Triphenia called in the course of the day, 
and Waltrindiam's landladv told lier that he 



A BUDGET OF NEWS. 233 

had gone to jail, and added a great many 
expletives about liis character, not at all com- 
plimentary to him or Tryphenia, for being 
deceived by such a villain." 

'' Poor Triphenia," said Salinda, " how 
humiliating." 

'' Not half as humiliating as w^hat followed, 
for she had to return home — ^to that home 
wdiich a few hours before she had left in such 
a contemptuous manner, there to beg upon her 
knees to be forgiven, before she could gain 
admittance, or shelter even for the night. It 
was a new era in her life to submit to her 
father, and treat him with becoming respect. 
It is a new era with him, to command respect 
or to exercise parental authority. But he has 
been taking lessons to-day ; I heard who his 
teacher was ; I only hope that the good work 
of reform will continue as it has begun ; for 
truly, Doolittle is not a bad man, and his 
children are smart enough ; they only lack 
control, and the instillation of a little common 
sense in the place of frivolity in the girls, and 
stubbornness and mischief in the boys, who, 
with proper training would make smart men." 



234 ECONOMY ILLrSTKATED. 

" There is still another hiiniiliation in store 
for them," said Mr. Savery ; " to-morrow the 
family move to the country, and next day the 
red flag will wave from their late residence, 
while the auctioneer cries ' going, going, gone,' 
over tlie piano, sofas, carpets, and rose-wood 
bedsteads. If I can close up his business and 
experiment of city life, with a loss of not more 
than two thousand dollars, I think I shall leave 
him with his hands unencumbered to go to 
work and retrieve the great mistakes of liis 
life. As for the girls, I have no fear ; Tri- 
phenia was the most foolish, and I hope her 
severe lesson will be one of good for life ; T 
have known folly cured by such a shock ; it 
will either produce that eifect, or send her 
headlong down the broad road of destruction. 
Let us hope for the best, and be charitable. 

" Kitty never was so deeply imbued with 
folly, and I am in hopes that when she gets 
back to the country, and finds that she must, 
she will take hold of the domestic duties, and 
make herself a housekeeper. The boys are 
both to be sent away to a school that I have 
recommended, where discij^line is the first law. 



THE EXPERIMENT OF CITY LIFE ENDED. 235 

and order the second, and where every boy is 
taught to clean his own room, make his bed, 
saw his own wood, kindle his fires, black his 
boots, and keep himself neat and respectable, 
besides attending to his studies. That will 
dispose of them ; my great fear is about their 
mother. Doolittle says he expects to have to 
carry her by force, if he gets her back to the 
country ; ' but,' says he, ' I will do it, if I 
have to carry her on a hearse.' " 

" Oh, Mr. Savery, you should have rebuked 
him for that." 

" I knew it was a strong expression, and so 
was the provocation. Come, let us adjourn 
this tea-table talk, and see if we cannot change 
the subject to one more profitable than the 
misfortunes, or errors in life, of our neighbors." 



236 ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 



CHAPTEE Vin. 

Reverse of Fortune with the Doolittles— Going back to the 
Country — Death and its Consequences — Scenes of Terror 
and Sorrow — Repentance and Reconciliation — Leaving 
Home for ever. 

The threat of Doolittle simply meant to 
imply that he had determined that it was for 
his interest, and the salvation of his family 
from ruin, that he should go back to the coun- 
try, and go he would, and his wife must sub- 
mit. He never before was a stern man, but a 
revolution had occurred in liis character, such 
as w^e sometimes see depicted upon the stage ; 
so sudden, so complete, that the actor seems 
to be playing another part. Doolittle was not 
acting a part — his was an original character, 
which might be acted to advantage, for others 
to study. The scene that was " got up " for 
his benefit, when he went home from the busi- 
ness of the day with Savery, can better be 



A FAULT-FINDING WIFE. 237 

imagined than described. Mrs. Doolittlej not 
being able to find him at the shop after send- 
ing til ere repeatedly, had made up her mind 
that he was away somewhere drunk, and hav- 
ing thus determined, she was not to be con- 
vinced by the palpable evidence of her senses, 
when he returned in the evening, that he was 
strictly sober. He suifered her to go on with 
her invectives, and charges of bringing ruin 
upon the family by his improvidence and 
laziness, thinking perhaps that the best way 
was, when the flood-gates were opened, to 
allow the current to flow until the pond should 
run out. This may be good policy where the 
stream comes from a small head, but quite the 
contrary where it flows from such an exhaust- 
less source as that which supplies the cataract 
of Niagara. 

" A pretty piece of work your drinking and 
ill temper have made — your drunkenness and 
your violence have undoubtedly broken off a 
very desirable match for your daughter — for I 
don't believe a word of the story you trumped 
up this morning — it was only a drunken 
dream, or else sheer spite against that lovely 



238 EC02sO:siY illustkated. 

young man — you never liked him, you know 
you didn't, and you need not deny it." 

" I am not at all disposed to : I own it : and 
am proud to think that my intellect was not 
so obfnsticated that I could not properly 
judge his character." 

" Do hear the man — was anything ever like 
it — one to hear you talk would think he was 
an imposter, or perhaps some escaped con- 
vict." 

" He may have been, but he will not escape 
now — he is in limbo for forgery, and I don't 
know how many other crimes, and will not 
be likely to get clear unless he breaks jail." 

"Breaks jail! Is he in jail? He is ! and 
you stand there talking about it so coolly. If 
he is in jail, where is your daughter — where 
is Triphenia — what is to become of her 
— Oh you monster, thus to break up your 
family. I should not wonder if you were the 
death of poor Triphenia. In the frame of 
mind she was in when she left home this morn- 
ing, I should not be surprised if she commit- 
ted suicide : and all through the conduct of 
her father. There," as she heard the door bell 



THE EETURN HOME. 239 

ring, "do run, Kitty, and see if it is not some 
messenger from the poor girl, or else to tell us 
that she has gone where no message will ever 
come from her to her poor distracted mother.'' 

Kitty was absent so long that it was evident 
that the messenger was not one that brought 
news of death or any other terrible calamity, 
though it was one that told of ruined hopes 
and blasted, ambition — that the wild day- 
dreams of a romantic girl had all been crush- 
ed, and herself humbled at a single blow. 

It was not a messenger from Triphenia, it 
was Triphenia herself; humbled, broken 
down, subdued, and weeping like a child. In 
one hour the whole of her life had been re- 
viewed, and her errors had rushed back upon 
her heart, and, like her father, for in many 
cases she was like him, she had seen what 
were her errors, and had determined to begin 
a new course of life. She fell upon Kitty's 
neck as she opened the door, and then for the 
first time during all the agony of the twenty- 
four hours, since the commencement of the 
quarrel, her fountains of tears were unlocked, 
and poured forth their streams, greatly to the 



240 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

relief of a heart that until then seemed on fire. 
As soon as she could speak, she begged Kitty 
to hide her from her an2:ry father — her mother 
she knew would storm awhile, but for that she 
cared nothing; her father '*if sober," she said, 
she could never meet him — she had injured 
him too deeply to hope for forgiveness. Oh ! 
sister, since you forgive me, hide me, at least 
for to-night, and don't let any one know that 
I am here." i 

To this Kitty acceded, and while Triphenia 
went quietly up to their room, she went back 
to tell her mother that she had heard from 
her sister, and that she was in a friend's house 
safe and well, and that her mother should see 
her in the morning. She then drew her father 
away, as she said, to give him some supper, 
but in reality to pave the way for a reconcili- 
ation with Triphenia. 

Doolittle was a man of a kind disposition, 
and loved his children, and loved their cares- 
ses, and therefore said yes, without an effort, 
when Kitty put her arms around his neck and 
said," father, you will forgive her ? " Her heart 
leapt with joy to hear that little word, " yes." 



A FATHER'S FORGIVENESS 241 

^' Oh come then, now, for she is so miserable" 
— and she took him by the arm, without 
regarding his question ^^ where ?" and led him 
up to her chamber. 

That " there is a time for all things," was 
partly proved by the fact that there is a time 
for penitence. Then was the time for Tri- 
phenia. She fell upon her father's neck, a 
subdued, penitent child. All the errors of 
her former conduct seemed to have concen- 
trated upon her mind, and to be brough^t by 
the one great error of her stubborn temper to 
a culminating point, and from that she had 
resolved that change, improvement, and some- 
thing better should arise. In this she was 
greatly assisted by her father's ready forgive- 
ness of her fault, but still more from the fact 
that he had determined never to touch another 
drop of intoxicating liquor. 

" In this," said he, '' my girls, I need all my 
own strength, and all that you can lend me. 
I have another severe trial for you, and to 
accomplish it in peace I shall also need your 
aid. I am utterly ruined in business, and 
have made an assignment, for the benefit of 
11 



242 ECONOMY U.LUSTKATED. 

my creditors, of all my property, this house 
and furniture included, except the few plain 
things that we shall need in the country, 
where we are to go to-morrow ; and I want 
your assistance to reconcile your mother, who 
has so often declared that she never will go 
back alive ; and, I am sorry to say, she has 
been sustained by her daughters, against the 
convictions of their father." 

" But shall not be any more. If you have 
been unfortunate, and find it best to return to 
the old place, you never shall say again that 
we were stubborn and prevented it, and I 
hope mother will be reasonable. Have you 
told her?" 

" Not yet ; but I will, now that I have got 
somebody to help me. Shall I do it to-night ?" 

^'Yes, now; the sooner the better; let's 
have it over with. Don't you say so, sister ?" 

" Certainly ; and then we shall be better 
prepared for our task to-morrow." 

Poor girls, they little knew what that task 
was to be. Although now is generally the 
best time, it was not so in this case. Mrs. 
Doolittle, with all her scolding of her husband 



TALK ABOUT MOVING. 243 

for drinking, was not herself entirely free from 
that foolish vice. Besides, she had been all 
day in a state of intense nervous excitement, 
which was aggravated by several potations, 
taken as certain antidotes for her disease. 

" It would have been better to have waited 
until morning, before breaking the news to 
her ;" that is, so said they all, after the result 
was known. Who knows ? Better say, all is 
for the best, however inscrutable. '' I want," 
said Doolittle, " to have a little talk with you 
about moving to the country." 

" Well, I don't want to hear anything about 
it. I have told you often enough never to 
speak to me again on the subject. When I 
am dead you may carry me, not before ; I tell 
you that, once for all, and let that be the end 
of it." 

" But it can't be the end of it ; we have got 
to move from here ; this house and furniture 
has got to be sold to pay my debts. I have 
failed." 

" I know you have ; you have been failing 
ever since I knew you. If you have drank up 
this house, it is no more than I expected ; but 



24:4: EcoKo:^^Y tt.lustkated. 

I can tell you, nobody is going to get me out 
alive. I am not going to take my girls back 
to the country, after I have spent so much to 
give them a genteel city education, and have 
got a fashionably furnished house for them to 
live in : depend upon that. If you choose to 
go, you may go, and the girls and I — " 

" The girls have already agreed to go, so it 

will be you who will have to stay alone." 

" It is a lie ; it is no such thing ; my girls — " 

" Have both agreed to go with father, and 

have come to urge you to consent to go with 

us freely." 

" Freely ! freely ! ha ! go freely ! then I 
am to be coerced if I don't go freely, am I? 
Hold your tongue — you are a pretty baggage 
— how that word grated upon Triphenia's ear 
— to join your father in a conspiracy against 
me. No, I won't go, I tell you all, to save 
you from falling dead at my feet. I — I — I — 
Oh, God forgive me ! — husband ! — Kitty ! — 

Tri _e— e— Oh !" 

Mrs. Doolittle was ready to go ; the period 
had arrived when she would make no further 
opposition. As she was uttering the words, 



THE TIME COME. 245 

'^ falling dead at my feet," slie had risen from 
her chair, and stretched out her hands in a 
menacing manner toY>^ards the girls, npon 
whom her anger seemed to fall most bitter, 
for having, as she thought, deserted her, and 
gone over to her husband's side. For a 
moment she looked wildlj terrible ; so much 
so that they were afraid to approach her. Mr. 
Doolittle had seen so many of her hysteric 
fits that he was not alarmed, until her voice 
changed to that of prayer, and then he hardly 
knew whether it was penitence or anger, until 
she called him and the girls by name, and in 
trying to finish Triphenia's name, turned 
black. in the face with suffocation, and before 
he could spring across the room to catch her, 
she pitched forward toward his outstretched 
arms, and fell heavily upon the carpet, a 
corpse. 

The time had come. Oh, how soon ! " When 
I am dead you may carry me." He carried 
her first to a sofa, and others rushed out for a 
surgeon. First one, then two, three, for not- 
withstanding it was midnight, the news spread, 
and each one that heard it ran for another 



246 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

doctor. It was of no use. The first one pro- 
nounced her dead — dead from suffocation — a 
very common effect upon obese persons of 
violent temper, resulting from sudden anger. 



SIX MONTHS ON time's eailkoad. 247 



CHAPTEE IX. 

Six Months on Time's Railroad — Talk of Marriage — Sensi- 
ble Conclusion to get ready first — Preparation for House- 
keeping — The New House — A Pleasant Surprise. 

How rapidly six months went down the' 
inclined plane of Time's railroad, carrying 
along the daily trains of cars freighted with 
hopes, anticipations, prospects of things to 
happen before the train reaches the final ter- 
mination ; and how^ anxiously had those wait- 
ing at the roadside stations, watched each day 
for the one that w^onld bring the culmination 
of the hope nearest the heart. 

Charley Goodman w^as among those watch- 
ing and waiting. Yet he was not impatient, 
for reason told him that in no six months of 
Salinda's life, had she travelled so fast upon 
the road of improvement that lifts the civil- 
ized, cultivated, educated woman, above one 
bred in savage life, or reared in health-destroy- 
ing indolence of families who suppose them- 
selves the very acme of Christian civilization. 



248 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

" Six months," said be to her one evening, 
" of my probation have passed. It is the first 
period that you set — ' six months or a year ' — 
those were the words ; do you intend to keep 
me waiting for the longest period ?" 

'' Why, Charley, the time has gone so rap- 
idly, that I can hardly realize tliat so many 
months of my life have been sped away never 
to return. But there is a lesson in that, well 
worthy of thought — careful, serious thought — 
it should teach us the economy of time. To 
look back, I cannot see where I have wasted 
mine, but to look forward it seems as though 
I should be able to accomplish a great deal 
more in the next six months than I have in the 
past. I do hope they will be as happy ones 
to me as the past have been. And one of the 
most happy of all the circumstances connected 
with them, is, that I am so much better fitted 
to be your wife than I was before." 

'' Then when will you be that coveted 
object?" 

'' You remember the promise — 'six months 
or a year ' — I shall leave it to you to decide, 
after 1 state a few circumstances. Neither of 



TALKING OF MARlilAGE. . 249 

lis having previously determined upon our 
marriage at this time, neither ai'e prepared ; 
and I have not been six months studying 
economy, without learning what a waste of 
time it would be to get married before we are 
13repared. Some romance reading young girls, 
seem to think that it would be the very per- 
fection of cunning mystery", to get married so 
suddenly or so slyl}^, that none of their friends 
would know of the courtship, until they were 
introduced as Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith. But 
that is not the case with us — it is well known 
that we are affianced — we make no mystery of 
our intention to get married — when we get 
ready — and that is what I propose now to do; 
and that will be carrying out the principles of 
economy that I have learned in this house. It 
is now the beginning of winter : the year will 
end in May, that sweetest of all the months of 
the year for a bright honey-moon ; and during 
the winter I will devote my leisure time to 
looking up, buying, making, and getting 
togetlier all the little et ceteras of house-keep- 
ing; in doing which I shall find the advice 
of Mrs. Savery and the assistance of Lillie 
11* 



250 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

almost invaluable. In the meantime yon shall 
determine where we are to live, and get onr 
house ready, and next May-day we will move 
into it in the morning, and at dinner time you 
shall have your first meal provided by the 
hands of your own dear wife. Now, is not 
that a lesson of economy, worth all the roman- 
tic marriages of G-retna Green ?" 

" Tou are a blessed angel, and you shall be 
my guide, I hope, through a long life of 
happiness." 

" Eather, we will go hand-in-hand, mj voice 
cheering you, and your strength sustaining 
me. It is thus a man and wife should live, 
and then they will be happy." 

It was very true, as Salinda said, that the 
advice of Mrs. Savery would prove invalua- 
ble in providing for house-keeping. Her 
father was willing to purchase almost any 
amount of costly furniture, but Salinda stead- 
ily refused. She wanted first to see where it 
was to be put, and then she would determine 
what she would have. 

" That you shall see to-morrow morning," 
said Charley. It was now winter, but one of 



AN OLD HOME. 251 

those clear, mild days that make an American 
winter so delightful, when Salinda went to see 
the spot selected for her future home. She 
was aware that something had been going on 
for some time between Mr. Savery and Char- 
ley, which they were not disposed to let her 
into the secret of; but whether it was a house 
or some article of furniture, she vras not cer- 
tain. However, this clear, beautiful morning 
was to determine the extent of their secrets. 
Just on the outskirts of the town lived old 
Captain Peabody, whose wife kept the cow 
that eat the grass saved by Frank from the 
garden borders and grass plot. Salinda had 
often admired the place, it was so neat, with 
its large garden and fruit trees, and little 
white stable, and old well, and green grass, 
and shady yard; but the old house, like its 
old occupants, had been in its prime fifty 
years ago. Both had seen their day, and the 
old lady had gone to her last home, leaving 
her old partner the sole occupant of their late 
one — now home no more ; and he had been 
persuaded to part with it, and go and spend 
the remainder of his days with a daughter in 
the country. It was a sad thing to go and 



252 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

leave a house where he had lived over fifty 
years, and all the choice trees and shrubs that 
bore fruit and flowers ; but it was a consola- 
tion to the old man to know into whose hands 
all his treasured things were going to fall, and 
that the place would be occupied by those 
who would not only permit, but welcome his 
occasional visits. 

"If it warn't for the poor old house looking 
so shabby," said Capt. Peabody to Charley 
Goodman, '' I would offer to sell you my place, 
because your Salincla would so appreciate the 
garden and fruit, and all the little conve- 
niences that make life comfortable ; and I 
would sell it to you cheaper than to any other 
person I know of, because I know that I should 
always meet with such a kind welcome and 
sweet smile from her, when I came to look 
after my pet trees, and, perhaps, use my pru- 
ning knife here and there as it was needed. 
I really must stipulate for the privilege of 
trimming the grape vines every season, as I 
could not bear to see them grow worthless for 
want of care. Ah ! it is not many years that 
I shall care for them at best." 

" No matter for the shabbiness of the house; 



BUYING A HOUSE. 253 

you know I am a carpenter, and can soon fix 
that ; if you have a mind to sell me the place, 
you shall ]'etain your old bed room, and always 
find it in order whenever you will come down 
and spend a night or a week or month in your 
old home. I shall think it good economy to 
make such an arrangement, for the many 
things that you can teach me, not only in 
pruning the vines, but in everything else, by 
which you have kept the place in such order 
that it attracts the attention of all passing by ; 
and as for Salinda, yoti knovv' how much she 
loves a garden and shrubbery." 

''And shall have it. I don't want the 
money, but I s^appose it is worth a thousand 
dollars, perhaps it would sell for more, but no 
matter ; I want that sum secured to my four 
grandchildren, when they come of age, and 
the place is yours ; is it a bargain ? " 

" It is ; I will have the papers prepared to- 
morrow, and go to work at once, and you shall 
soon see hovv^ quick I can cure the house of its 
shabby appearance. If you please, do not tell 
Salinda ; I want to give her a pleasant little 
surprise." 



254 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

He did so upon the morning mentioned. 
Tlie place was about a mile fi'om Mr. Savery's, 
and the day clear, dry and bracing. He 
offered to get a carriage, but she simply said, 
" would that be good economy ? " It would not, 
because the walk was not only pleasant, but 
in such air, particularly healthy. It would be 
good economy for ladies to take many such 
walks. 

The plan arranged was, that Mrs. Savery 
and the girls should start whenever they got 
ready, and Mr. Savery and Charley would 
meet them at the Capt. Peabody place, where, 
it was understood, they were at work fixing 
up the house for sale, and go from there to 
the house he talked of occupying, which was 
close by, in that pleasant neighborhood. 

"Dear me, Mrs. Savery," said Salinda, " do 
look what a pretty cottage they have made 
where the old house used to stand. I declare I 
wish Charley could have bought that, it would 
have been perfectly lovely. "Who did he say 
was going to live there ? I am afraid that I 
shall break the tenth commandment." 

" I hope not; I do not recollect tliat he ever 



THE OLD HOUSE REBUILT. 255 

told me wlio was going to live here, but who- 
ever it is will have a very pleasant home ; the 
old man has a valuable collection of fruit." 

" "Whoever has it, I hope will give him a 
share while he lives ; I am sure he is entitled 
to it over and above all the money price." 

" That is a good sentiment, Salinda ; let us 
step in and inquire who the new owner is, and 
whether he will be likely to carry out your 
wishes." 

They found, upon examination, that the old 
house had not been taken away entirely ; it 
w^as only remodeled. The frame was one of 
the old sort of solid oak, calculated to endure 
for ever, upon its firm stone-wall foundation, 
that extended to the bottom of a dry cellar, 
and there rested upon a rock. Upon such a 
foundation a more modern form had been 
wrought out of the old fabric. The large 
stone chimney had been removed from the 
center, and two brick tops added to the roof, 
which had been changed into a gothic form, 
and tops are only needed where stoves take 
the place of hearth-stones. In the place of 
the chimney was now a stair-way to four good 



256 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

bed-rooms abov^e, and to cellar, milk-room, 
and coal-room below. 

The space formerly occupied by the stair- 
way was now included in a hall; so that, in- 
stead of a cramped, narrow entry, there was 
a fine, roomy space, which would often be 
used for a sitting-room in summer. The par- 
lor was the same old square room, the white 
ash floor of which had never known a carpet; 
but how changed its appearance ; for in place 
of the great stone fire-place stood a bright 
coal stove, and the little w^indows of small 
panes of glass had given way to a large pro- 
jecting windovr upon each — the north and 
east — side, reaching from floor to ceiling, 
wdiicli, with the w^alls, had been papered upon 
the half century old plastering. 

The '' common room " had undergone ano- 
ther metamorphosis; for the back windows 
were hidden by a new building for a kitchen, 
store-room and pantries, the latter of which 
formerly occupied the east end of this room, 
but had been removed, and the room carried 
out six feet, with long windows opening on 
the north, south and east sides, making a plea- 



THE OLD BED-KOOM. 257 

sant alcove both summer and winter, looking 
out upon the grass-plot and flower-garden, 
and within reach of two plum trees and a 
nectarine. 

At the other end of this room was a bed- 
room. — it was the one that this good couple 
had slept in for fifty years, and it looked as 
though it might have been occupied up to 
this moment by the same persons without 
change. It was the only thing unchanged 
about the house. Salinda expressed her sur- 
prise. She was delighted with every thing 
she saw, and admired the taste of the new 
purchaser in all his alterations ; but this room 
was a phenomenon, and she exclaimed, " What 
does it mean ?" 

" It is the intention of the old captain to 
pay the new occupant an occasional visit, to 
look after his favorite fruit trees, and prune 
and keep them in bearing — " 

" And to eat the fruit, I hope." 

^' Yes, I hope so, for many years ; and the 
purchaser has thought how pleasant it would 
be for the old man at such times to occupy 
his old room, just as he did when the place 



258 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

was all his own. It will be pleasant, too, I 
hope to the new owners." 

" Yes, and grateful in the sight of Heaven, 
to see such kind consideration for the aged, 
the poor bereaved old man. How it must 
ease the pang with which he parted with his 
home. Oh ! I could hug the purchaser to my 
heart for this," said Salinda, with enthusiasm. 

" Then do it," said Charley, bursting into a 
joyous laugh, in which he was joined by the 
others, while he folded the astonished, but 
thrice happy girl, in his arms. Happy to 
think this lovely home was hers — ^happy to 
think the praise of this noble act which she 
had so applauded, was due to the man she 
had chosen for a husband — happy to think 
with what care and pleasure she, with her 
own hands, would keep that room always in 
order, while the old man would teach her the 
names, and how to tend and cultivate the 
various trees and plants of the garden. As 
the children sometimes say, she was " happy 
all over." 

"You told me," said Charley, "that I should 
have all winter to get a house ready, and when 



HOUSE FURNISHING. 259 

I had got it, you could tell what you wanted 
to furnish it with ; I am now ready for your 
part ; I only stipulate that you shall not order 
any furniture, except carpets and crockery 
and small articles, until you see me again 
upon that subject." 

" Another surprise, I suppose ; but you have 
nothing in store that can make me any more 
happy than I am now — I am full — my excess 
of pleasure is almost childish. Oh! this is 
such a home; such a lovely pleasant place, 
that I feel as though I could not be thankful 
enough. But I will not let my pleasure in- 
terfere with my business, if I am to buy the 
furniture, the first thing is to get the measure- 
ment of the rooms for the carpets. "Will you 
give me that, while I make a memorandum, 
as we go from room to room, with Mrs. 
Savery's assistance, of the various articles 
necessary — mind the word, necessary — for I 
intend to get no others, that we shall require. 
Lillie, will you act as clerk, yoa are so quick 
with a pencil? Here is my memorandum 
book. Where shall we begin ? '• 

" In the kitchen, certainly," said Mrs. 



260 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

Saveiy, " for there, of all other parts of the 
house, is where things are necessary, yet there 
is where they are most neglected. In the first 
place, Lillie, you may make a memorandum 
of the tin ware from your recollection ot what 
we have at home ; and alvx'ays bear in mind, 
Salinda, that buying cheap tin ware is throw- 
ing money aw^ay ; none, but the very best 
double plate, should ever be used, and such 
will last a life time- — -the poorest kind w^ill 
wear out in a year. Upon the same principle, 
never buy low priced earthen ware, particu- 
larly that which looks like the substance of a 
common brick, when broken. The solid strong 
stone ware costs, perhaps, a quarter more, and 
is worth ten times as much as the other. 

" The same remark w^ill apply to iron and 
wooden ware ; it is much more economical to 
buy the best at first. Put down a looking 
glass, Lillie; every kitchen should have a 
looking glass, so that whoever has occasion to 
go from there to the parlor may not be morti- 
fied, when she catches a glance in the great 
mirror, to see that her hair or dress is all 
awry. A little glass here, that will only cost 



CAKPETS. 201 

half a dollar J will save many a dollar's wortli 
of time spent in running up stairs, 'just to fix 
my liair.' 

" You want a good strong oil cloth on the 
floor ; it will save twice its cost in labor before 
it is worn out. You must have plenty of 
kitchen towels ; if you don't, it is ten chances 
to one but the first hired girl you have will 
take a damask table cloth to wipe the dishes, 
and a fine wiping towel for a pot cloth. The 
best material in the world, for kitchen cloths, 
is our country tow linen ; it is worth five times 
as much as the imported crash — trash would 
be a better name — that almost every body 
uses." 

" What do you advise about carpets ?" 
"That you buy a substantial three-ply 
carpet of some only medium dark pattern and 
cheerful colors, which will in a measure cor- 
respond with the furniture, for this room, 
where you will spend nearly all your time. 
For the parlor, you may as well get a good 
Brussels, that will last you a life time, but 
mind that the pattern is one that has some 
resemblance to something in the world, and 



262 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

that in both figure and color, it is cheerful. 
As your stairs are not in a position for show, 
when the front door is open, I should put 
down a strip of soft matting, just to break the 
sounds of the step. You know stair carpeting 
is going out of fashion and paint is substituted. 
For your bed-rooms, I would buy a good piece 
of ingrain, or three-ply, enough to carpet all 
the rooms alike. Get a pattern of soft colors, 
a prominent one of which should be green, 
and the figures, flowers and foliage. As to 
your bedding, you will find it good economy 
to get that of good quality throughout. You 
should have both cotton and linen sheets and 
pillow cases. 

" There, I think that memorandum will last 
you till next week, and then we will come out 
again and see how things look, and what 
Charley has to say about the other furniture." 

Next week they did come out again, and 
sure enough, there was another surprise. Mrs. 
Lovewell had, unbeknown to Salinda, em- 
ployed a man to put down the carpets, and 
Charley had been busy with his part of the 
plot. He had learned from the Saverys how 



THE BED ROOMS. 263 

much of the furniture of a house he could 
make with his own hands, and while the ordi- 
nary work of his trade was slack during the 
winter, he had thus employed himself, and 
w^ith the assistance of a painter had succeeded 
most admirably. Salinda found the four bed- 
rooms occupied with bedsteads, bureaus, wash- 
stands, tables and chairs, the cost of which 
would bear no comparison to the mahogany 
and rose-wood ones that she was tempted to 
buy at the Doolittles' sale, because, as the 
auctioneer said, they went at such a great 
sacrifice upon first cost. 

" Shall I bid?" said Charley to Mr. Sayery, 
when they were selling " so yery low." 

" iSTo, no ; you don't want them — you can 
make better ones in your own shop with a 
few boards, a saw, plane, and hammer, and 
nails, and a little paint." 

So he did ; and now, here they were. 
" This," said Mrs. Sayery, ''is the oak-room — 
this the maple-room — this the black-walnut 
room — and this you haye so hidden the kind 
of wood, that we shall haye to distinguish it 
by the color." 



2C)-i: ECONOMY ILLUSTKATED. 

'* No, we will distinguish it by the orna- 
ment ; we will call it the tulip-room. The 
articles are made of the wood of the American 
tulip-tree, and the painter has very appropri- 
ately chosen the flower and leaf for an orna- 
ment ; just as you see in the oak-room, the 
handles of the bureau are carved acorns, 
and oak-leaves, and on the walnut and 
maple, there is the representation of a leaf 
in gilt. 

''I will add, as they are wanted, more 
frames for lounges, such as I have in this room 
and the sitting-room below, where you will 
find all the necessary tables, benches, etc. ; 
and I would have tried my hand at the parlor 
furniture, but your mother would not consent. 
Your father wanted to buy everything, but I 
said No, and now he is as much delighted as 
his daughter appears to be ; and he declares 
that he intends to quit business and come and 
live with us — he has already chosen the oak- 
room, and says it pleases him better than any 
imported furniture. You know he is a great 
tariff man, and goes for home manufactures, 
and this kind of furnishing jurr.t suits his 



THE OLD HOME. 265 

notions. He insisted that all the carpeting 
should be American." 

AVhile Salinda was enjoying her raptures, 
to see how nice everything looked, and won- 
dering how all these changes would affect the 
good old man, to whom they owed so much 
for the embellishments of the ground, which 
no amount of industry could have given them 
in the short time it had taken to metamor- 
phose the house, she was startled with the 
feeling of a hand upon her shoulder — some 
one had approached unseen, and she turned 
suddenly, and met the smiling face, glowing 
beneath the snowy locks of the man she was 
just talking about in words of such heart- 
feeling. In another moment — it was impulse 
without premeditation — a sort of magnetic 
attraction — he was pressing her in his arms, 
while she gave him a child- like, affectionate 
kiss. 

" I will tell you what he thinks — how he 
feels — that in giving up his old home to 
strangers, he never shall feel like a stranger 
among them. You will be to me more like a 
dear child of my own, than a stranger, and 
12 



266 ECONOMY ILLUSTEATED. 

all this change does not grieve me half as 
much as it would to come back to the same 
old house I left, and find an old hat here, a 
pillow or old rags there, filling the broken 
windows, and the whole house occupied with 
dirt and squalid wretchedness. It is the first 
time I have seen my old home since I left it — 
the change is very great, to be sure, but all 
for the best.'' 

Salinda then took the old man through the 
house, and skowed him the new arrangements 
and conveniences, with all of which he ex- 
pressed as much delight as though he had 
made them himself for a favorite child. At 
last she opened the door of his old bed-room ; 
and when he saw that amid all the altera- 
tions, this had been preserved without change, 
his heart was too full for utterance. He knew 
the object, and felt the full force of the kind 
act ; and tears trickled down his cheeks, as he 
stood oflering up a mental prayer for those 
who showed such feeling for others, that they 
should never lack ministering angels to their 
own declining years. 

It is strange how little is required to move 



GETTIXO KEADY FOR THE V>^1:L)T)I>:G. 20 i 

tlie liuinai) heart, and sincq siicli trifling acts 
of kindly feeling of one to another produce 
so much happiness to giver as well as receiver, 
that we are not more anxious to be kind to 
one another. 

Time now sped on rapidly with the prepara- 
tions for housekeeping. Few seem to under- 
stand the economy, however, of all these 
preparations before marriage, instead of after ; 
for then the time of the young wife is more 
or less absorbed by calls of friends, many of 
wdiich must be returned, or friends and ac- 
quaintances will feel that the laws which 
govern the courtesies of life have been vio- 
lated. 

March, that month of storm, cold and blus- 
tering winds, snows and rains, with alternate 
freezing and thawing, which makes it one of 
the most uncomfortable months of all the 
year, had come and gone ahuost unnoticed by 
Salinda and the Saverys, so busy were they 
in tliis work of preparation. April, too, wntli 
its sunshine and showers, its summer hot 
days, and chilling cold, was rapidly going 
down the smootli ways that launch the gliding 



26S ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

months into eternity, deep-freiglited as they 
are with whatever serves to malve up the cargo 
of joys or sorrows of human life. May-day 
was now rapidly approaching, and May-day 
had been set apart by Salinda for that — to a 
young woman — most important of all days of 
her life — her wedding-day. 

During the winter there had been one sub- 
ject frequently talked over among those who 
occupied the sitting-room, and made up that 
pleasant family circle at the Saverys. That 
subject was the Doolittle family. The change 
was indeed a wonderful one. Triphenia had 
kept her promise to her father to the letter ; 
for she had done all a child could do to make 
his home a pleasant one, and in this she had 
been ably assisted by Kitty. Mrs. Savery had 
been out several times to visit and advise 
with them, and her instructions were well fol- 
lowed. Triphenia said she was determined 
to win her approbation as a housekeeper, to as 
great a degree as she had lost her respect, 
while absorbed in the folly of trying to ape a 
class that all her antecedents had unfitted her 
for. Being naturally of a strong mind, full of 



EFFECTS OF EEFORM. 269 

the raw material out of which proper educa- 
tion makes a smart, sensible woman, she was 
quick to learn, and six months' practical 
education had produced almost as great a 
change in her, as the same period had in Cap- 
tain Peabody's old house. Salinda and Lillio 
had often visited the girls in their humble 
home in the country, and always came away 
as much delighted with their visit, as they 
had been formerly disgusted. 

The girls had been persuaded, too, into a 
new course of reading, and Salinda and Lillie 
had both undertaken to furnish them books 
with their own notes and comments, and re- 
ferences to particular chapters, pages or sen- 
tences. Charley Goodman, too, had entered 
into the spirit of the thing, and used to come 
every spare evenings and while Mrs. Savery 
and the girls plied their busy needles, he 
whiled the time away reading aloud ; and 
Mr. Savery, whenever the occasion offered, 
added some comments, and Frank acted as 
note-taker, which Lillie afterwards wrote out 
and sent to the Doolittle girls. 

It is perfectly surprising, the amount of in- 



2i0 ECONOMY ILLrSTKxlTED. 

forination that may be thus treasured up in a 
family, by this economical use of time in the 
long winter months. 

It should encourage all of us in the prosecu- 
tion of a good Vv^ork, when we read v\diat a 
beneficial influence was wrought upon those 
wayward girls. Triphenia and Kitty, by 
these friendly epistles of good advice and en- 
couragement, and the notices of good books, 
with extracts from their pages, by which a 
new taste for reading was acquired, and a very 
vicious habit of reading none but the most ex- 
citing novels got rid of, by which both mind 
and morals were improved. 

The last day of April at length arrived. The 
wedding dress was all ready ; it was a simple, 
plain white muslin ; no more expensive than 
would be appropriate for the daughter of a 
very humble mechanic. Salinda had steadily 
rejected all the oflers of her parents to provide 
costly apparel, or jewelry ornaments. "^'I 
already liave enough," she said, " and I Vvdll 
not grieve a woman who has devoted so much 
attention to teaching me economy, as Mrs. 
Savery has, by incurring a useless expendi- 



THE EANl: CimTIFICATE. 271 

ture." She only asked just enougii besides her 
own simple dress, to apparel her bridesmaid, 
the dear Lillie, just like herself, and give a 
new suit to " brother Frank." 

Mr. Lovewell had made it " a matter of 
business" to pay Mrs. Savery pimctually every 
month the sum stipulated for Salinda's " board 
and tuition." He was always careful to insert 
these terms in every receipt ; and he was just 
about as careful to send the money on the last 
day of the month, as he was to pay his notes 
in bank ; and it was always sent in gold. In 
the excitement of this busy evening, this 
wonted punctuality had been forgotten by the 
recipients, but not by the payer of the money, 
and while they were sitting as usual after tea, 
in their family chit-chat, a ring was heard 
upon the door-bell, and while Salinda was 
wondering if that could be father and mother, 
the regular monthly messenger was ushered 
into the room with his " little matter of busi- 
ness." 

" I wish," thought Lillie, " that Mr. Pre- 
cision had for once forgotten that this is the 
last day of the month, in the evening, and 



272 ECONOMY ILLU8TKATED. 

that to-morrow we are going to have a wed- 
ding here,'' for Salinda had stipulated that 
she might be married in a house that had been 
to her a home for the happiest year of her 
life. 

Mrs. Savery thought as she took the pack- 
age and signed the receipt, " I wonder if this 
punctual man of business formality will let the 
year pass without ever expressing a single 
-word of approbation, except this regular pay- 
ment for ' board and tuition ' ?" 

There was nothing to indicate that the man 
felt that he had any other obligation to dis- 
charge, and Mrs. Savery bowed her head 
upon her hand, it must be owned, slightly 
sad. She was not a vain woman, but she had 
that good ti*ait in human nature which 
prompts many a noble action — a love of ap- 
probation. She was so absorbed in thought, 
that she did not notice that the man, before he 
left the room, had crossed over and handed a 
package to Lillie, who was just then wishing 
the man had not come there. He simply said : 
"This is for you, Miss Lillie Savery," and 
bowed himself out of the room. 



lillie's surprise. 273 

LilHe sat in a maze of wonder, eyeing the 
formidable seal which had been affixed by 
the old clerk with as much scrupulous exact- 
ness as though he was going to send it by 
mail, instead of being his own postman. 

" You might as well break it," said her 
father. 

^' Break what?" said her mother, for the 
first time looking up and seeing the astonish- 
ment depicted in Lillie's face, as she looked 
at the package in her hand. Mrs. Savery 
now wondered. Lillie soon solved the won- 
der, by clipping the enveloj)e and displaying 
the contents, the most noticeable of which 
was a bank stock certificate, made out in the 
name of Jotham Savery in trust for his daugh- 
ter Lillie, for one thousand dollars. 

There was a short letter addressed to Miss 
Lillie Savery, begging her to accept the 
enclosed " as a marriage portion, whenever 
that event may occur, as a very slight and 
perfectly inadequate expression of the deep 
sense of gratitude due you and your family, 
from your truly sincere friends, Mr. and Mrs. 
William Lovewell." 



2Ti ECOi^^OMY I".LUSTRAT]:n. 

Tears trickled do^vn the cheeks of Mrs. 
Saver3\ as Lillie read the note, ^vhich though 
very short, was very expressive. Her love of 
approbation was fully gratified. 

It was, perhaps, very well that all minds 
were just now diverted from this subject by 
another. Susan said a gentleman was waiting 
in the passage to speak with Mr. Savery, who 
went out and said a few words in so low a 
tone that the voices could not be distinguished, 
except as he said to the stranger, " Wait till I 
speak with the girls." 

"What could he be waiting for? What was 
to be said to the girls ? That was soon known, 
for Mr. Savery came back with an unusually 
serions face, and as he entered, said, "Poor 
Doolittle !^ 

" Poor Doolittle !" replied Mrs. Savery ; 
" why, you alarm me ; what has happened ?" 

" Nothing has happened yet ; but he is 
likely to lose his housekeeper — that is, liis 
oldest one. Triphenia is going to be mar- 
ried, and like Salinda, she has chosen May- 
day for her wedding day." 



ANOTHER SUllPKISE. i5 < O 

'^Then she won't be here — nor Kitty, I 
suppose. Then who will stand up with Lillie ? 
What a misfortune !" 

'^ I don't know about that ; that all depends 
upon circumstances. She will come, if you 
will agree to have a double wedding here, 
and then all go together out to her husband's 
home in the country." 

" Well, now, in the first place, we should 
like to know who we are going to entertain, 
and where we are going to be entertained. 
Who is the happy man?" 

" Really, I never thought to ask his name ; 
but he is in the hall; I will call him in to 
speak for himself" 

He threw open the door, and the gentleman 
came forward. Lillie was the first to probe 
the mystery, which he endeavored to keep up 
by holding his hat before his face. She 
sprang forward, and had her arms around his 
neck before he had fairly emerged into the 
light, uttering a wild exclamation of joy, as 
she repeated, " Uncle Samuel — uncle Samuel 
— I thought so : I knew it must be him, for I 
am sure Triphenia never loved any body else; 



276 ECONOMY ILLUSTRATED. 

and now what a good wife slie will make him ! 
But how sly they have been, though !'' 

If my readers can imagine a more happy 
wedding party than the one that lunched at 
the Saverys, and dined at the old "Whitlock 
farm, on the first of May, 185-, or better or 
more happy wives than those that preside 
now, at this moment, over Whitlock House 
and Peabody Cottage, I shall leave them to 
their imagination. 



THE END. 



*0 20.2 




V ,.^ 




MAY- 7 4 ,^^°^ " 

ST. AUGUSTINE !.r O 



